When you look at today's society, you will see one grave statistic.
And that is the statistic of the amount of people in poverty compared to
the amount of people in luxury. We see people working eight to twelve
hours a day, getting paid very poorly, given a very small allowance of
what society produces, and then on the other side, we see men and women
buying expensive drinks, clothes, houses, and cars. They are wealthy
capitalists, or they are corporate executives, or they are politicians.
Their income allows them to practice excess and have little time
laboring. Whatever labor they do, it is to aid companies and businesses
in increasing the price of food, increasing the price of housing,
increasing the price of goods, necessities, commodities, clothing, and
services. It also aids these businesses in paying their workers less,
in laying off the least productive workers, in making the work day of
the average laborer more productive, but also more stressful, more
disappointing, and more overwhelming. In one word or two, we can
describe the activities of the wealthy class as exploitive; they all
seek, in one way or another, to make men labor and create vast
quantities of wealth for their economic masters. This is the status of
things, which every man of intellect will accept, which every working
person will sadlly confess to, as every person concerned in the
processes of government, no matter what their class, will agree upon.
These are the way things are. It's extremely oppressive and without any
sense of natural justice. The way things are has become the enemy of
the working man, and we work everyday so that we can overthrow these
oppressive, exploitive relationships in society.
There
is no doubt that the economy operates on this principle of
exploitation. Who will deny that there is a small sect of wealthy
people who have massive control over all of the produced wealth? Who
will deny that most working class individuals are poor, without means to
make themselves wealthy, without any direction in the economy except as
a wage laborer? Who will deny that the wealthy use their influence to
bribe political leaders, or use their wealth to support the campaign of a
political leader who will support their interests? Who will deny that
the poverty of the working man drives him to crimine, to preying on his
fellow man to ease his pains that were caused by this system; that is to
say, long work hours, low pay, and the misery of cruel labor? These
are arguments that no serious person will ever doubt. These are not
exaggerated statements. This is the situation of America it exists now
and as it will continue to exist until we do something to change it.
We, as Socialists, Communists, and Leftists, all seek to eliminate the
Capitalist system.
The average person who looks at this, and
agrees with these words, one of the members of the common working class
who identifies himself as a Socialist and a Communist, when reading all
of these arguments, he is content with the ideas, supportive of the
measures, and a proponent of our initiatives. "The means of production
must become the collective property of the public; there shall be no
masters and no slaves in our society!" But, he errs; he becomes a
Marxist. His solution to the problem has been to have a revolution of
the voting poll; a swing shift of voters attempting to elect Socialist
party candidates. "All we have to do is make tyranny illegal," the
nominated Socialist declares to a toast at his party headquarters. The
working class soldiers rally to the call, but they soon become
unimpressed and lose faith in the process of elections and campaigning.
So long as a state exists, there will be great compromises between the
working class desires and the interests of megacorporations and their
billions of dollars of influence. So long as there is a state, there
will always be a hierarchy, there will always be the dominating figure
of authority threatening liberty, there will be unfair class divisions
of the ruling over the ruled. In this regard, the government becomes
our greatest enemy. And by government, Anarchists mean all
organizations that are based on authority and oppression, on control and
obedience. For all of these reasons, we have the understanding that
Democratic control of the law is the only just means of social
organization. It is the only method where the liberty of the average
citizen is guaranteed in a society based on equity and tolerance, the
precursors to a true freedom without leaders.
What then, I am
asked, is the way in which we go about securing this better future for
ourselves? Every other reform movement or social issue group in the
past has worked towards legislation, lobbying, letter-writing. The
Prohibitionists worked on getting anti-liquor candidates in to office.
Many of the Civil Rights advocates lobbied to get anti-discrimination
laws passed. And, again, the Feminist movement has to thank the vocal
women who demanded the media not to glorify large-breasts or perfect
body images. All of these movements in the past have effectively
changed the status quo of society from their voting. It was the
legislative process of the system that allowed for their minority
opinions to become democratically important. I do not doubt the ability
of the system to make some small changes, as insignificant bartering
techniques with the working class, but the government never made any
changes until they had been created by the people. There was no serious
discussion about passing a Civil Rights bill in either the congress or
the senate, until news studios started to carry stories about police
dogs ripping apart African American protestors who are demanding their
liberty.
The government itself has never taken on any of these
great public works projects; it has never worked to improve the
personality of mankind or enhance the liberty of artists, poets, and
inventors. The government is, and always has been, the vanguard soldier
of the past, ancient traditions of our forefathers. It has always been
the enemy of whatever progressive policy brings to the table. Whether
it's the case for Civil Rights, the right for women to vote, the right
of Homosexuals to be free of job discrimination, or the right of the
working man to receive a minimum wage, it has always been opposed to by
the government. The standing order of old power and wealthy rulers have
always been the bitter and antagonistic enemies of these new changes.
These changes always have to be yanked out of the hands of the
establishment, they must be demanded with the powerful screams of a
unified population;