Workmen's advocate., 1890-06-21

the more emhttering it is. - H
 The less skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labor, in other words, the more modern industry becomes dev- eloped, the more is the labor of men superseded by that of women. Differ ences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class, All are instruments of labor, more or less expensive to use, ac. cording to age and sex. G@
 No sooner is the exploitation of the laborer by the manufacturer, so far, at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the land lord, the shopkeeper the pawnbroker, etc.
 The lower strata of the Middle class the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handi- craftsman and peasants all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly be- cause their dlminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which modern industry Is carried on, and IS swamped Tn the competition with the large cap- talists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production. Thus the prole- tarlat is recruited from all classes of the population.
 The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With it's birth begins its struggle with the bourGeoisie At first the contest is carried on by in- dividual laborers, then by the work people of a factory, then by the opera tives of one trade, in one locality, against tue individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instru- ments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labor, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the van lshed sta us of the workman of the Middle Ages.
 At this stage the laborers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole coentry, and broken up by their mutual competition If anywhere they unite to orm more compact bodies, this is not yet the consequence of their own active union, but of the union of the bourgeoisie, which class. in order to at- tain its own political ends is compelled to set the whole proletariat in motion, and IS moreover yet, for time. able to do so. At this stage, therefore, the proletarians do not fight their enemies but the enemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the nonindustral bour- geois, the petty bourgeoisie. Thus the whole historical movement is concen- trated in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory so obtained is a victory for the bourgeoise.
 But with the development of industry the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows and it feels that strength more. The vari- GUS interests and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more capitalized. m proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labor and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level. The grow ing competition among the bourgeois, and the resulting commercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more tluctuating. The unceasing inn provement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their iveli- hood more and more precariOus; the collisions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes. Thereupon the workers begin to form combinations Grades Unions) against the bourgeois; they club hor in tn | ha tn Nf wages; they found permanent associa- tions in order to make provision before hand for these occasional revolts. Here and there the contest breaks out into riots.
 Now and then the workers are vic torious, but only for time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not ii, the i'm. mediate result, but in the ever improved means of communication that are cre- ated in modern industry, and that place the workers of different localities in contact with one another. It was just this contact that was needed to central ize the numerous local struggles, all of the saTue character, into one national struggle between classes. But every class struggle is a political struggle. And that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the modern proletarians, thanks to rail, ways, achieve in a few years.
 This organization of the proletarians nto class, and consequently into political party, is continually being up- set again by the competition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again; stronger, firmer, mightier. It compels legislative recognition of par ticular interests of the workers, by talk ing advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself Thus the ten hours bill in England was carried.
 Altogether collisions between the classes of the old society furtber, in many ways, the course of development of the proletariat. Tn, oourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle, At