isputed control of the State and federal government
and especially of the judiciary." This statement is slightly inaccurate.
The capitalists will allow the enactment of measures that benefit the
working class, provided those measures do not involve loss to the
capitalist class. Thus sanitation and education are of real benefit to
the workers, but, temporarily at least, they benefit the capitalist
class still more, by rendering the workers more efficient as wealth
producers.

The Socialist platforms of the various countries all recognize, to use
the language of that of the United States, that all the reforms indorsed
by the Socialists "are but a preparation of the workers to seize the
_whole_ power of government, in order that they may thereby lay hold of
the _whole_ system of industry and thus come to their rightful
inheritance." (Italics are mine.) This might be interpreted to mean that
through such reforms the Socialists are gaining control over parts of
industry and government. Marx took the opposite view; "the first step in
the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the
position of ruling power...." He left open no possibility of saying that
the Socialists thought that without overthrowing capitalism they could
seize a _part_ of the powers of government (though they were already
electing legislative minorities and subordinate officials in his day).

Sometimes there are still more ambiguous expressions in Socialist
platforms which even make it possible for social reformers who have
joined the movement to confess publicly that they use it exclusively for
reform purposes, and still to claim that they are Socialists (see
Professor Clark's advice in the following chapter). For example,
instead of heading such proposals as the nationalization of the
railroads and "trusts" and the State appropriation of ground rent
"reforms indorsed by Socialists," they have called such reforms, perhaps
inadvertently, "_Immediate Demands_," and the American platform has
referred to them as measures of relief which "we may be able to _force_
from capitalism." There can be no doubt that Marx and his chief
followers, on the contrary, saw that such reforms would come from the
capitalists without the necessity of any Socialist force or
demand--though this pressure might hasten their coming (see Part I,
Chapter VIII). They are viewed by him and an increasing number of
Socialists not as _concessions to Socialism forced fr