Page:Alexander Jonas - Reporter and Socialist (1885).djvu/18

 duces hundred-fold what had formerly to be made by the muscular exertion of the worker, and it does it better and quicker than the hands of the workman, but we would even strive to extend and improve upon it.

And what about the other phase of capitalism?

It is the one we desire to abolish. It represents the "true inwardness," the sum and substance of capitalism, and in carrying on production at wholesale (and not, as it used to be in the past, when production was carried on by individuals on a small scale, and in the special interest of these very individual producers) i. e., that a certain quantity of commodities of one kind is being produced by dozens, hundreds, thousands of workmen co-operating in the process of production, but exclusively for the advantage of one, or several individuals—for the advantage of the boss, or bosses.

And pray, why is it that the socialists want to abolish this phase of "capitalistic production?"

Because it is unjust in its very essence, and its consequences are detrimental to human society. Because it is the main cause of the misery prevailing in the so-called civilized countries to-day. It causes that part of the people who are condemned to a life of hard and poorly paid wage-labor without any hope to extricate themselves and their descendants from such a miserable lot to daily increase and to continually sink to a lower depth of degradation. It causes the so-called middleclass to disappear slowly while, on the other hand, it amasses enormous, astonishing wealth in the hands of a few—the result of hundreds of thousands being robbed of the fruit of their toil. It causes immense fortunes, the possession of which enables a small number of individuals to not only increase their power by which they appropriate the labor of others to their own use, but also to arrogate to themselves all political and social power that they may "fix" Legislatures, Judges, Newspapers, Boards of Aldermen, Police, etc., to serve the interest of their own class exclusively. It will hardly be necessary to explicitly prove this assertion to you, as every one who reads the daily papers knows it to be true; and every paper, also the one you represent, furnishes the facts to prove it almost every day in the year.