Communism and Christianism / Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View

by William Montgomery Brown

But in coming there is no need for leaving your church any more than there is for leaving your state. During the short time which is for me, before the night cometh in which no man can work, I shall remain in both as long as the powers that be allow it, and do what little I can to revolutionize them—revolutionize the church into a school for the teaching of truth instead of lies, and revolutionize the state into a hive for the making of commodities for the use of all instead of for the profit of a few. In doing this I shall be following in the very footsteps of the human Jesus.

After it was discovered that the ground, by planting and cultivating, would produce the necessities of life, when a tribe found that it had too little of it for its growing population, it would go to war with the weaker among adjacent tribes for the purpose of securing its territory; but from this on the vanquished were not eaten, and it was morally wrong to eat them. They were kept alive and put to work at raising harvests for their conquerors, hence arose the institution of slavery, and hence its moral rightness even in this country of the free, down to the beginning of the generation to which I belong.

However, human slavery has never ended, nor will it ever end while the competitive system for the production of the necessities of life for profit rather than use continues. Human slavery is, so to speak, the basic ingredient of this system.

Speaking broadly, there have been three forms of human slavery—the chattel, feudal and wage slaveries—the third much worse than the first, and the second intermediary between them.

The chattel slave, as the adjective signifies, was the property of his master, as much so as were the horse or the mule with which he worked, and he was cared for in much the same way and for about the same reason.

The feudal slave was as really a chattel as was his predecessor, only he had to look out for himself to a greater extent; and, more was expected from him of accomplishment for the opulence and glory of the master, especially insofar as these depended upon the success of his wars.

The wage slave is, likewise, as really owned by his master as was the chattel or the feudal slave; but, if the master has no need for his service, he is altogether down and out, as the feudal slave was not and still less the chattel, and he has accomplished at least ten times more for his master than did either of his predecessors.

So far man has produced and distributed the necessities of life by a competitive system. The existing form of this competition is known as capitalism. It has supplanted, or at least overshadowed, every other form and is, so to speak, monarch of all it surveys.

The system as it now stands divides the world into two spheres—a small one, in which a few live surfeitingly by owning, and a large one, in which the many live starvingly by working; and, yet, ultimately, absolutely everything for both depends upon the worker and nothing at all on the owner.

Yes, the worker is indispensable to the owner, as much so as (to use the classical illustration) the dog to the flea; but the owner is no more indispensable to the worker than a flea to a dog. As dogs would be much better off without fleas, so would workers without owners.