University of Houston, 4333 University Drive, Houston TX 77204-2000, (713) 743-1050.
© 2013 University of Houston. All rights reserved.
| Title | The road to power, or, the constructive elements of socialism |
| Creator (LCNAF) |
|
| Publisher | Literature Bureau of the Workers' International Industrial Union |
| Place of Creation (TGN) |
|
| Date | 1919 |
| Subject.Topical (LCSH) |
|
| Genre (AAT) |
|
| Language | English |
| Type (DCMI) |
|
| Original Item Extent | 33 pages: chart; 17 cm. |
| Original Item Location | HX86.D25 1919 |
| Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b8304529~S11 |
| Original Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
| Digital Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
| Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/scpamp |
| Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
| Repository URL | http://libraries.uh.edu/branches/special-collections |
| Use and Reproduction | This item is in the public domain and may be used freely. |
| File Name | index.cpd |
| Title | Image 12 |
| Format (IMT) |
|
| File Name | uhlib_12374394_011.jpg |
| Transcript | I 10 THE ROAD TO POWER minor role played by the capitalists in this industrial process is well known. If social and political influence were apportioned in ratio to the economic use-value of a class, then the proletariat would certainly be the dominant class in society and the capitalists occupy a most insignificant position. The opposite being the case, proves conclusively that political and social influence is not the fruit of •cial service, but the product, as was the case in previous centuries, of economic power in some shape or form. The economic power of the capitalist class, a power to which the vast majority of the population is compelled to pay homage, is not only lodged in the private ownership of land, as in the case of Feudalism, but in the private ownership of all instruments and agencies of wrealth production. The title of private ownership to the means necessary to the life and prosperity of a nation, vested in a numerically insignificant minority, gives this minority an unlimited control over the welfare and happiness of a people. Here we have the source of capitalist power—the genesis of the social and political significance of the capitalist class. The title of private ownership in the means of production is the cornerstone of the capitalists' social influence—the generator of every form of capitalist power. To shatter this foundation of capitalist class might, to capture this stronghold of industrial despotism in the interest of the workers, must, therefore, be the one great object of Constructive Socialism. The destruction of the economic power of the capitalist class, .of course, also spells the collapse of its political rule, together with the social position occupied by this class, and announces the inception of the social revolution and the elevation of all the producers in society to the rulership of society. The question how to organize the proletarian forces for |