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THE A B C OF SOCIALISM (Including The A B C Of Economics)
THE A B C OF SOCIALISM (Including The A B C Of Economics)
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Scanned, proofed and corrected from the original edition for your reading pleasure. It is also searchable and contains hyper-links to chapters.
***
BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION
The authors of this little book, which is a frank piece of Socialist propaganda, lay no great stress on the originality of what they say. That would be quite impossible at this date for any elementary book on Socialism. If there be any originality at all, then, it is in the manner of presenting the subject, in including an A B C of Economics, and in giving an easily constructed, but firmly founded argument together with the material for making it intelligible.
The book is so written that it touches upon much material more than once, but each time from a different standpoint. This kind of repetition amplifies the reader's knowledge, impresses the point and relieves the monotony so characteristic of many good books on the subject.
There is no reason why a conscientious reading of Part One alone should not give the reader all the essentials of modern Socialism. Part Two is well calculated to lead the interested student into the detailed aspects of the subject.
This book is dedicated to all those slaves whom it would earnestly help to free, not through enthusiasm that results only in fine phrases, but through knowledge that leads to intelligent action.
—The Authors.
***
An excerpt from the beginning of:
CHAPTER I - Introductory
The Extent and Growth of Modern Socialism — Method of Approaching the Subject — Socialism In Its Four Phases.
IF you are a millionaire, or a million-heiress, this little book is not intended especially for you, although you may profit a good deal from reading it. If, on the other hand, you are a workingman or a workingwoman (for to Socialists the woman is the man's equal), then you know what it is to be worried on all sides by the troubles of making a living — you know what it is to work long hours for small pay — to lay awake nights wondering how you may improve your condition. You know, too, what it is to become discouraged so often, and to wonder whether after all there is a way out of your plight. You have listened to reformers with silk hats upon their heads and frock coats upon their backs, and have felt that their big words served only to cover small ideas. It is for you, then, that this book is written, and as you turn to the pages that follow no silk-hat reformers will greet you, but rather the opposite to their methods will be employed: big ideas in small words.
Above all, in considering your own troubles — and you know them better than we can tell — do not accept any explanation which does not fit into your every day experience and your common sense. What is the use of a nicely-worded proof that times are good, when wife and children are hungry, and father is out of work? Where is the value of smug proclamations of boundless prosperity, when on every hand you find your fellow-workers no better off than yourself? How can you be deceived about the annual hoax called "bumper crops" when even the farmers, who raise the crops, complain that they do not receive the benefits of the crop increase, any more than you receive the full benefit of your daily and nightly toil? Is it not peculiar that it is only the rich who have no fault to find with modern conditions, except that the " lower classes " are becoming too dissatisfied? If this is so, and the only people who are content with the way things are run to-day are the rich, it must be because the rich find themselves growing richer, while your own experience teaches you that your position is every day growing less bearable.
Not only are we of America suffering in this manner. Take strikes like the miners' revolt in Colorado, in Michigan, in Arkansas, during the year of 1914. In Colorado men and women were shot down in cold blood by the mine owners and their hirelings. According to subsequent government verdict, the burning of an entire miners' community (which had been forced to live in tents after being evicted from their homes by the company) was charged to the owners of the mines. For every strike of this nature here there are an ever increasing number of duplicates abroad. In other words, the suffering of the working-class extends beyond national boundaries; their cry arises from the entire face of the globe; their misery is international.
***
BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION
The authors of this little book, which is a frank piece of Socialist propaganda, lay no great stress on the originality of what they say. That would be quite impossible at this date for any elementary book on Socialism. If there be any originality at all, then, it is in the manner of presenting the subject, in including an A B C of Economics, and in giving an easily constructed, but firmly founded argument together with the material for making it intelligible.
The book is so written that it touches upon much material more than once, but each time from a different standpoint. This kind of repetition amplifies the reader's knowledge, impresses the point and relieves the monotony so characteristic of many good books on the subject.
There is no reason why a conscientious reading of Part One alone should not give the reader all the essentials of modern Socialism. Part Two is well calculated to lead the interested student into the detailed aspects of the subject.
This book is dedicated to all those slaves whom it would earnestly help to free, not through enthusiasm that results only in fine phrases, but through knowledge that leads to intelligent action.
—The Authors.
***
An excerpt from the beginning of:
CHAPTER I - Introductory
The Extent and Growth of Modern Socialism — Method of Approaching the Subject — Socialism In Its Four Phases.
IF you are a millionaire, or a million-heiress, this little book is not intended especially for you, although you may profit a good deal from reading it. If, on the other hand, you are a workingman or a workingwoman (for to Socialists the woman is the man's equal), then you know what it is to be worried on all sides by the troubles of making a living — you know what it is to work long hours for small pay — to lay awake nights wondering how you may improve your condition. You know, too, what it is to become discouraged so often, and to wonder whether after all there is a way out of your plight. You have listened to reformers with silk hats upon their heads and frock coats upon their backs, and have felt that their big words served only to cover small ideas. It is for you, then, that this book is written, and as you turn to the pages that follow no silk-hat reformers will greet you, but rather the opposite to their methods will be employed: big ideas in small words.
Above all, in considering your own troubles — and you know them better than we can tell — do not accept any explanation which does not fit into your every day experience and your common sense. What is the use of a nicely-worded proof that times are good, when wife and children are hungry, and father is out of work? Where is the value of smug proclamations of boundless prosperity, when on every hand you find your fellow-workers no better off than yourself? How can you be deceived about the annual hoax called "bumper crops" when even the farmers, who raise the crops, complain that they do not receive the benefits of the crop increase, any more than you receive the full benefit of your daily and nightly toil? Is it not peculiar that it is only the rich who have no fault to find with modern conditions, except that the " lower classes " are becoming too dissatisfied? If this is so, and the only people who are content with the way things are run to-day are the rich, it must be because the rich find themselves growing richer, while your own experience teaches you that your position is every day growing less bearable.
Not only are we of America suffering in this manner. Take strikes like the miners' revolt in Colorado, in Michigan, in Arkansas, during the year of 1914. In Colorado men and women were shot down in cold blood by the mine owners and their hirelings. According to subsequent government verdict, the burning of an entire miners' community (which had been forced to live in tents after being evicted from their homes by the company) was charged to the owners of the mines. For every strike of this nature here there are an ever increasing number of duplicates abroad. In other words, the suffering of the working-class extends beyond national boundaries; their cry arises from the entire face of the globe; their misery is international.
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