forces," says Marx,
causes the coming up of new classes and stimulates in each and all
classes a desire to use their power for a maximum class advantage.
Referring to the struggle between the class of wage earners and the
class of employers, Marx brings out that modern machine technique has
concentrated the social means of production under the ownership of the
capitalist, who thus became absolute master. The laborer indeed remains
a free man to dispose of his labor as he wishes, but, having lost
possession of the means of production, which he had as a master-workman
during the preceding handicraft stage of industry, his freedom is only
an illusion and his bargaining power is no greater than if he were a
slave.

But capitalism, Marx goes on to say, while it debases the worker, at the
same time produces the conditions of his ultimate elevation. Capitalism
with its starvation wages and misery makes the workers conscious of
their common interests as an exploited class, concentrates them in a
limited number of industrial districts, and forces them to organize for
a struggle against the exploiters. The struggle is for the complete
displacement of the capitalists both in government and industry by the
revolutionary labor class. Moreover, capitalism itself renders effective
although unintended aid to its enemies by developing the following three
tendencies: First, we have the tendency towards the concentration of
capital and wealth in the hands of a few of the largest capitalists,
which reduces the number of the natural supporters of capitalism.
Second, we observe a tendency towards a steady depression of wages and a
growing misery of the wage-earning class, which keeps revolutionary
ardor alive. And lastly, the inevitable and frequent economic crises
under capitalism disorganize it and hasten it on towards destruction.
The last and gravest capitalistic industrial crisis will coincide with
the social revolution which will bring capitalism to an end. The
wage-earning class must under no condition permit itself to be diverted
from its revolutionary program into futile attempts to "patch-up"
capitalism. The labor struggle must be for the abolition of capitalism.

American wage earners have steadily disappointed several generations of
Marxians by their refusal to accept the Marxian theory of social
development and the Marxian revolutionary goal. In fact, in their
thinking, most American wage earners do not start with any general