Page:Karl Marx The Man and His Work.pdf/115

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N the first part of this article a detailed examination of the social and economic position or status of the two principal classes in present society was made. This investigation, we believe, has revealed to us clearly the economic functions performed by the different social classes; thereby also exposing the sources or seat of their respective social power. We can at least venture to assert that it has brought home the so important truism that all political or social influence exercised by a social category in a particular historic period is but a reflex of its economic influence or might, i.e., that political power or governmental control does not conquer and cement the industrial supremacy and hegemony for a class, but, on the contrary, that the industrial supremacy of a class is also bound to ultimately insure political power and governmental domination to it. The proper recognition of this fact by the proletariat—a fact which can be amply substantiated by historic and sociological examples—will eventually compel this class to organize and conduct its struggle against Capitalism accordingly. This further implies that the proper appreciation of this fundamental proposition will henceforth actuate the class-conscious workers to concentrate their energies upon the organization of their economic power; and this attempt will again animate them to seek to establish the original source of this potential force in the working-class.

In our last article we emphasized that the economic power of the workers did not rest in some form of ownership or property prerogative, as is and was the case with all previous ruling classes, but in the recognition of their proletarian status, in the recognition of their economic worth or indispensability—in their class-consciousness. From this deduction it follows