the unpaid labor and reduce the paid labor to the minimum, _i. e._, to
or below the level of bare subsistence. In other words the Wage System
conceals the Class Struggle.

III

THE CLASS STRUGGLE

The third of the great ideas that will always be associated with the
name of Karl Marx is that of the Class Struggle. The Class Struggle is
logically such a necessary consequence of both the Materialistic
Conception of History and the Law of Surplus-Value, that as we have
discussed them at some length, but little need be said of the Class
Struggle itself. In discussing the Materialistic Conception of History
we showed with sufficient fullness and clearness that, in the language
of the Communist Manifesto, "The history of all hitherto existing
society is the history of Class Struggles." Hence it is clear the
doctrine of class struggles is a key to past history. But it is more
than this. It is a compass by which to steer in the present struggle for
the emancipation of the proletariat, who cannot, fortunately, emancipate
themselves without emancipating and ennobling all mankind.

The Law of Surplus-Value has shown us that there is a deep-seated,
ineradicable conflict between the direct class interest of the
proletariat which coincides with the true interests of the human race,
and the direct, conscious guiding interest of the class who own the
means of production and distribution. There is here a direct clash
between two hostile interests. This fact has been skilfully hidden from
the eyes of the workers in the past, but the modern socialist movement,
aided by the growing brutality of the capitalist class, is making it
impossible to fool them in this way much longer. In other words, the
workingmen are becoming Class-Conscious, _i. e._, conscious of the fact
that they, as a class, have interests which are in direct conflict with
the selfish interests of the capitalist class. With the growth of this
class-consciousness this conflict of interests must inevitably become a
political class struggle. The capitalists, the economically privileged
class, struggle to retain possession of the State that they may continue
to use it as a weapon to keep the working class subjugated, servile and
dependent. The proletariat, the working-class, struggle to obtain
possession of the State, that they may use it to destroy every vestige
of economic privilege, to abolish private property in the means of
production and distribution, and thus