British Socialism; An Examination of Its Doctrine, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE GRIEVANCES OP THE SOCIALISTS Socialism is not only a theory of another and better system of society: it is an indictment of the existing order. 1 The Socialist conception of society as at present constituted, given in the preceding chapter, will have prepared the reader to some extent for the Socialist grievances. These grievances are three in number, and may be summed up as follows: (1) The workers are for all practical purposes slaves who are kept in chains and forced to work by the capitalist class. (2) The rich men cause the poverty of the poor by defrauding them of the largest part of their wages. (3) The workers receive only from one third to one fourth of the wage which is their rightful due. Let us look into these grievances. According to the Socialist leaders, the workers? Helots in hunger nursed Slaves of their reign accursed 2? keep the rich in affluence. Nevertheless they themselves are kept in poverty, degradation, and slavery by the capitalists whom they nourish by their labour. The landlord owns the raw material and can live in idleness. The capitalist owns the machinery and can live in idleness. The worker has nothing, except his ability to work, andhe cannot work without the consent of the landlord and the capitalist. Therefore, he is virtually a slave. He cannot control his own life. 1 1 Justice, October 19, 1907. Social-Democratic Federation Song Book, p. 13. As a matter of fact the position of the worker is worse than was that of the slave. It did not always pay to starve a slave, because if he died you might have to buy another one. Therefore the lot of the slave under a good master was in many respects better than that of the proletariat in our great cities.2 Poverty rather than property is t...