This document is Arnold Petersen's 1947 preface to Daniel De Leon's 1896 pamphlet, Reform or Revolution . The four constitute an integrated whole, each dealing with a particular facet of basic, or elementary, Marxism. On the contrary, the principles laid down by De Leon in this pamphlet are as applicable, and the language essentially as fresh, as when first presented in Boston fifty-one years ago.
Reforms naturally imply belief in the usefulness, or indispensability, of the thing to be reformed.
A garment may be renovated or repaired over and over again, but the point is eventually reached when the effort and cost of repair exceed the replacement cost of the garment. To continue to repair must eventually, and inevitably, lead to a result directly opposite to that at which the process of repairing is aimed. It ceases to be economical to repair, and the garment is discarded. However, to continue to repair a worn-out garment is no more foolish and wasteful than it would be to discard the garment while it is still serviceable and worth repairing. As with a garment, so with social systern and social organizations, except, of course, that the latter involve questions far more complex, and infinitely further removed from the arbitrary will and whims of man.