Page:Karl Marx The Man and His Work.pdf/112

110 economic control of the socially necessary means of production. The holding of this economic citadel imparts a strength or power to the capitalist class phenomenal in scope and only explainable by the absolute indispensability of these economic resources to society. To capture this position from the capitalist class; to meet the economic power of the plutocrats with a superior economic power of the workers, that is the next logical step in this gigantic struggle.

Economic power, as has been sufficiently illustrated in the foregoing pages, is the source of all other forms of social influence; therefore, economic power can be correctly defined as the basic element of social might. Consequently, if a class seeks to rise to political domination, seeks to capture the governmental institutions of a nation, in short, seeks to attain control of society, it must first predicate its ambitions and demands upon a solid structure of organized economic power. Demands and movements not so fortified are in the outset doomed to ignominious failure and defeat. This deduction applies particularly to the struggle of the proletariat against the exploiting class.

In our investigation we have clearly defined the seat of the capitalists' economic power, and, therefore, fully appreciate the significance and source of the political and social influence exercised by this class in society. We know that the title of private ownership in the means of production, vested in the capitalist class, is at the bottom of it all. In the face of such a powerful force, what form of economic power can the working class organize with which to be able to overcome and obliterate the property prerogatives of Capitalism?

We are fully aware that all ruling classes in the past have based or established their social supremacy upon some form of ownership, i.e., upon some property prerogative. The patricians of Rome considered birth and the possession of land, cattle, and a multitude of slaves a fitting recommendation to rule; the feudal lord pivoted his era of the mailed fist upon the absolute control