Page:Anton Pannekoek - Marxism and Darwinism - tr. Nathan Weiser (1912).pdf/20

Rh the fact that this theory serves them as a weapon in the class struggle. For it is the class struggle that engages almost all the people.

This can be seen most clearly in Marxism. Were the Marxian economic teachings of no importance in the modern class struggle, then none but a few professional economists would spend their time on them. It is, however, owing to the fact that Marxism serves the proletarians as a weapon in the struggle against capitalism that the scientific struggles are centered on this theory. It is owing to this service that Marx's name is honored by millions who know even very little of his teaching, and is despised by thousands that understand nothing of his theory. It is owing to the great role the Marxian theory plays in the class struggle that his theory is diligently studied by the large mass and that it dominates the human mind.

The proletarian class struggle existed before Marx for it is the offspring of capitalist exploitation. It was nothing more than natural that the workers, being exploited, should think about and demand another system of society where exploitation would be abolished. But all they could do was to hope and dream about it. They were not sure of its coming to pass. Marx gave to the labor movement and Socialism a theoretical foundation. His social theory showed that social systems were in a continuous flow wherein capitalism was only a temporary form. His studies of capitalism showed that owing to the continuous development of perfection of technique, capitalism must necessarily develop to Socialism. This new system of production can only be established by the proletarians struggling against the capitalists, whose interest it is to maintain the old system of production.