rel refers to the same thing as the "belief in the magic influence of
departmental authority,"[32] while Labriola divines that "parties may
elect members of Parliament, but they cannot set one machine going, nor
can they organize one business undertaking."[33] All this reminds one of
what Marx himself said in the early fifties. He speaks in "Revolution
and Counter-Revolution," a collection of some articles that were
originally written for the New York _Tribune_, of "parliamentary
_cretinism_, a disorder which penetrates its unfortunate victims with
the solemn conviction that the whole world, its history and future, are
governed and determined by a majority of votes in that particular
representative body which has the honor to count them among its members,
and that all and everything going on outside the walls of their
house--wars, revolutions, railway constructing, colonizing of whole new
continents, California gold discoveries, Central American canals,
Russian armies, and whatever else may have some little claim to
influence upon the destinies of mankind--is nothing compared with the
incommensurable events hinging upon the important question, whatever it
may be, just at that moment occupying the attention of their honorable
house."[34]

No one can read this statement of Marx's without realizing its essential
truthfulness. But it should not be forgotten that Marx himself believed,
and every prominent socialist believes, that the control of the
parliaments of the world is essential to any movement that seeks to
transform the world. The powerlessness of parliaments may be easily
exaggerated. To say that they are incapable of constructive work is to
deny innumerable facts of history. Laws have both set up and destroyed
industries. The action of parliaments has established gigantic
industries. The schools, the roads, the Panama Canal, and a thousand
other great operations known to us to-day have been set going by
parliaments. Tariff laws make and destroy industries. Prohibition laws
have annihilated industries, while legality, which is the peculiar
product of parliaments, has everything to do with the ownership of
property, of industry, and of the management of capital. For one who is
attacking a legal status, who is endeavoring to alter political,
juridical, as well as industrial and social relations, the conquering of
parliaments is vitally necessary. The socialist recognizes that the
parliaments of to-day represent class