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| Title | The road to power, or, the constructive elements of socialism |
| Creator (LCNAF) |
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| Publisher | Literature Bureau of the Workers' International Industrial Union |
| Place of Creation (TGN) |
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| Date | 1919 |
| Subject.Topical (LCSH) |
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| Genre (AAT) |
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| Language | English |
| Type (DCMI) |
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| 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 17 |
| Format (IMT) |
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| File Name | uhlib_12374394_016.jpg |
| Transcript | CONSTRUCTIVE ELEMENTS OF SOCIALISM 15 respective social power. We can at least venture to assert that it has brought home the so important truism that all political or social influence, exercised by a social category in a particular historic period, is but a reflex of its economic influence or might, i. e., that political power or governmental control does not conquer and cement the industrial supremacy and hegemony for a class, but, on the contrary, that the industrial supremacy of a class* is also bound to ultimately insure political power and governmental domination to it. The proper recognition of this fact by the proletariat—a fact which can be amply substantiated by historic and sociological examples—will eventually compel this class to organize and conduct its struggle against Capitalism accordingly. This further implies that the proper appreciation of this fundamental proposition will henceforth actuate the class-conscious workers to concentrate their energies upon the organization of their economic power; and this attempt will again animate them to seek to establish the original source of this potential force in the working-class. In the aforementioned chapters we emphasized that the economic power of the workers did not rest in some form of ownership or property prerogative, as is and was the case with all previous ruling classes, but in the recognition of their economic worth or indispensability—in their class- consciousness. From this deduction it follows that the economic and social influence or power of the proletariat is not, as it has been so often erroneously asserted, to be found in the form or particular function of an organization, but in its spirit and theoretical composition. Not the form or particular functions will affect and determine the principles of an organization, but the principles will determine the form and functions. Therefore, it can- |