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that a larger and larger proportion of the population of every capitalist country should be driven into revolt, should get to understand the real nature of the system under which we live. It is inevitable that the collectivism which is manifesting itself more and more daily in the domain of production should lead to the association of the workers engaged in this production first for comparatively small economic gains, then more and more for political aims, for the purpose of mastering production instead of being mastered by it. In short, it is inevitable that the capitalist psychology of the workers should change into socialist psychology as the economic conditions become ripe for socialism. But the more we understand the need and necessity of this change, the more enthusiastically we work for ideals which we know to be in accordance with the historic development of society, the quicker will this change be brought about.
The materialist is, therefore, anything but a fatalist. He is simply logical and practical. Instead of being moved by mere sympathy to devise pretty schemes (as, for instance did the Utopion socialists) which may or may not be possible of realisation, he works in a direction which he knows must bear fruitful results. Further, in choosing his methods, he again studies economic and historic conditions. Here he finds that what gives our capitalist society its characteristic form is the appropriation by the capitalist, without any equivalent return, of the surplus values created by the workers. There is thus a fundamental antagonism between the capitalists as a class and the workers as a class. It is the working class which is most vitally interested in freeing itself from the enslavement of capital. It is, therefore, to the worker that the scientific socialist chiefly appeals. Moreover, studying the conditions of present-day life, we see that the workers in their mass are those to whom socialism will appeal most strongly. Compare the psychological effect their respective conditions of life are bound to have on the factory worker, the small peasant working on his own bit of land, and the small shopkeeping class or private tradesman. The peasant leads an isolated life; he has little means of intercourse with his fellow-beings; his ideas are
