The Commonwealth. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1911-1914, 1912-11-22
THE REVOLUTIONARY
FARMER.

I
Now, apropos Of Comradc llermou's
article, the farmer has shown himself
TO as keenly DESTROYS and as capable of
this change as the wage.worker
Tho mainstay OF the socialist move.
ment has bcen the farmers vote and
dues; while ON the other hand the
city proletariat has been surprisingly
backward. This is especially true in
Washington. If the cities of this state
would do as well as the country we
could expect the party triumphant in
the near future. It is nothing to find
country precincts with the socialist
vote in the majority but this cannot
be said of the city wards
It is all a matter of method so It
seems to me. Some are naturally
"hot-hoaded." Such want quick and
hasty action and when the cooler
farmers insist on slower but more
considerate action they are denounced
as not being revolutionary. Person
any Nbuiu hdNt Nht ltNplullOl lO-
morrow if it could be so had but as |
become convinced that the step-at-a-
time method is, just now, the only
tactic available, it makes me an i'm
mediate demander"
Comrade Herman's definition of a
capitalist is not correct. A capitalist
is a person who derives his income
from interest, profit and rent through
the ownership of capital and the eX-
ploitation of labor. Capital, as Marx
has it, is wealth, land, machinery
etc, used for the exploitation of labor
The mere fact that the farmer owns
little property which may, under
certain circumstances, become capital,
does not make him a capitalist. If
he exploits no labor, rents no prop
erty, is Withholding no land from use
for the purpose of speculation, it can,
not be said that the farmer is a CAPT
talist
Bernstein's criticism, in part, is that
too much emphasis is placed on the
class struggle. The comrade does so
here. There are the wage-class and
the capitalist class, but there is also
the middle class, divided into different
layers, prominent among which is the
farming class. The middle class is
not decreasing. In the Common
wealth a few months back we were
informed that the small farm owing
class was, in ratio increasing faster
than any other class excepting the
tenant farming class. AS whole, the
farmer is a much healthier element of
strength to the movement than GER
tain elments of the proletarian as for
instance the body servants or .ue
slum proletariat, that passiyely rot
ting mass thrown off by the lower
layers of old society,"" as says the
Manifesto. We can't lay down abso-
Lutte rules in this matter; the class
struggle can be over emphasized. The
farmer although a member of the mid
die class is much more available for
the purpose of revolution than are
these aforementioned elements of the
proletariat.
OF course, it is the proletariat which
must form the right and center of our
army. No one denies that. But the
farmer has also his place in this
army Of the coming change.
l will agree with our comrade in
his dissertation on the MARKHAM law
of value. The farmer is not exploited
in buying. Commodities under priv
ate capitalism sell as the rule at their
value. But if the government went
into business it could sell commodi-
ties below their value by the elimina-
ton of profit At Panama the gov
eminent is selling goods below their
value; of course in our state we are
paying more for the same goods be-
cause we must pay full value. The
two elements: that which represents
paid labor and that which represents
unpaid labor or surplus value. A
government mandatory could pay
better wages than usual and then,
eliminating profit, it could sell its
goods below their value; in other
words, it could do what Chas. Kerr
& Co. boasts of doing: make a pres
ent to the purchaser of the surplus
value contained in its commodities
sold. That would be a benefit to both
farmers and wage-workers who con-
sumed such goods thus manufactured
and disposed Of Here the farmers
and wage-workers have a common in
terest in electing congressman and
legislators to get this done.
Government ownership of railroads,
with a good delegation of socialist
congressmen to see they were man
aged right would be a benefit to both
farmers and wage-workers. Last
January I ran three or four articles in
the Commonwealth on taxation, in