Page:The Advancing Proletariat (1917).pdf/23

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THE ADVANCING PROLETARIAT
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such a similarity of psychology, such a singleness of viewpoint and unity of purpose, that the moral and religious lives of the people would all rise to the same high and noble standard. In fact, administration in such a society would most probably resolve itself into the collection, classification and dissemination of industrial statistics, and the enforcement of the moral code would be a function of the Industry of Public Health and Sanitation.

Two facts stand out prominently in an examination of modern society; 1st, THE PROLETARIAT IS THE SUBJECT CLASS, and 2nd, THE SPECIAL FUNCTION OF THE STATE IS TO KEEP THE PROLETARIAT IN SUBJECTION. Therefore, any organization of the proletariat as a class must at once be considered a menace to the privileged classes and be declared illegal. All the activities of the proletariat furthering its program for a new society must necessarily be revolutionary and be beyond the "Law." Therefore, the Socialist Politician's "legal revolution" idea is regarded as absurd, by the proletariat; and since the proletariat realizes that all its forces must be closely co-ordinated and drilled in production and co-operation in order to function in the new society, the idea that the whole economic struction of this present society can be changed by going to the polls once every two or four years is especially absurd.

The proletariat makes no appeal to any but the wage working class, though it realizes that the growth of the Social Consciousness among all classes must bring thousands to its standard, whose immediate personal interests would be conserved by an opposite course. It realizes how great a task it is to persuade men against their material interests, and how small the chance is to secure a majority at the polls—a majority, helpless in its strength because undisciplined in co-operation and composed of potentially discordant elements. But more