Page:The Advancing Proletariat (1917).pdf/20

18 BECAUSE HE IS A PROLETARIAN" and, in order to secure unity and efficiency, he organizes at the machine, the only place where he appreciably functions in the scheme of modern life.

Any force in society that lacks a constructive program is useless—a futile force. If it merely defends a set position and does not keep pace with the progress of the age by means of a positive policy of its own, it cannot function for the proletariat; for the proletariat is fundamentally revolutionary; therefore aggressively progressive. An alien class in modern society, it finds itself unable to function agreeably, even tolerably, in conjunction with any other class. Its whole attitude is one of uncompromising antagonism. With the loss of the property idea it also lost the idea of "contract," which is an inseparable feature of the craft unionist property foundation. Clearly then, the craft union, with its circumscribed property and contractual notions, its acceptance of capitalist proprietorshopproprietorship [sic], its lack of a constructive policy, cannot function for the proletariat.

Political parties, with their methods of nose counting, are not acceptable to the proletariat; not only because the economically powerful are prone to disregard the noses of slaves, but because the methods of the ballot box are too much the methods of the mob; and THE PROLETARIAT REALIZES THAT ITS FORCES MUST BE MARSHALED, DRILLED AND DISCIPLINED FOR THE DUTIES OF PRODUCTION AND INDUSTRIAL ADMINISTRATION. It realizes that the modern "government" is but a shadow and not a substance—that it is merely a committee acting for the economically powerful—and that it will dissolve of its own motion whenever its economic support is withdrawn. Representation in such a government has no value to the proletariat, since it does not care to trade