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for as shown above, the organization of society on any other basis is the practical enslavement of the laborer, the difference between chattel-slavery and wage-slavery being one of form. The substance remains the same: the capitalist in the former system owned the laborer, and hence his product, while under the latter he owns his labor product, and hence the person of the wage-laborer.
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THE OBJECT OF THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION.
Editorial taken from "The Alarm"
Our branch of Socialism holds that all existing statutory and constitutional powers of the Government confer on capitalists and the property-holding classes the power to compel the wage-workers to yield implicit obedience to their command under the penalty of starvation or death by physical violence. This is what we call wage-slavery. We insist that no such thing as freedom of contract can exist between those who hold the means of subsistence as their private property, and who can and do dictate the terms of existence to the propertyless. Arbitration, on this account, must prove a failure.
The march of events is toward a social revolution. By this expression we mean the time when the wage-laborers of this and other countries will assert their rights –natural rights- and maintain them by force of arms. The social revolution means that expropriation of the means of production and the resources of life, or, in other words, the opportunity to work and live with the unrestricted use of all the means of subsistence. This revolution will place capital at the disposition of society, and, being a social product, the result of the joint efforts of the present and past generations, belong by natural right to society alone. This outcome is a necessity which cannot be avoided. We would prefer a peaceful solution rather than war, but we do not bring about the revolution. On the contrary, the social condition creates the revolutionist. It will not come because we wish it, but because it must come. We simply foretell its approach and prepare for it.
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