THE POLITICS OF THE NEW CAPITALISM We are told that the political issue as viewed by American radicals is, "Shall property rule, or shall the people rule ?" and that the radicals may be forced entirely over to the Socialist position, as the Republicans were forced to the position of the Abolitionists when Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Mr.Ray Stannard Baker notes also that capital is continually the aggressor, as were the slaveholders, and that the conflict is likely to grow more and more acute, since "no one imagines that these powerful men of money will give up their advantage lightly" any more than the old slaveholders did.
Another "insurgent" publicist (Mr.William Allen White) says that the aim of radicalism in the United States is "the regulation and control of capital" and that the American people have made up their minds that "capital, the product of the many, is to be operated fundamentally for the benefit of the many." It is one of those upheavals, he believes, which come along once in a century or so, dethrone privilege, organize the world along different lines, take the persons "at the apex of the human pyramid" from their high seats and "iron out the pyramid into a plane."[35] If the aim of the "progressives" is the overthrow of "the rule of property" as Mr.Baker claims--if, in the words of Mr.White again, "America is joining the world movement towards equal opportunity for all men in our modern civilization," then indeed the greatest political and economic struggle of history, the final conflict between capitalism and Socialism, is at hand.
But when we ask along what lines this great war for a better society is to be waged, and by what methods, we are told that the parties to the conflict are separated, not by practical economic interests, but by "ideas" and "ideals," and that the chief means by which this social revolution is to be accomplished are direct legislation and the recall and their use to extend government ownership or control so as gradually to close one door after another upon the operations of capital until its power for harm is annihilated, _i.e._ democracy and collectivism.

In other words, the militant phrases used by Socialists in earnest are adopted by radicals as convenient and popular battle cries in their campaign for "State Socialism," as to banking, railroads, mines, and a few industrial "trusts," but without the slightest attempt either to end the "rule of property" or to secure "equal opportunity" for any but farmers and small business men.

They do nothing, moreover, to bring about the new political and class alignment that is the very first requirement, if the rule of property in all its forms is to be ended, or equal opportunity secured for the lower as well as the comparatively well-to-do middle classes.
Similarly the essential or practical difference between the "Socialism" of Mr.Roosevelt's editorial associate, Dr.Lyman Abbott, who acknowledges that classes exist and says that capitalism must be abolished, and the Socialism of the international movement is this, that Dr.Abbott expects to work, on the whole, with the capitalists who are to be done away with, while Socialists expect to work against them.
Dr.Abbott claims that the "democratic Socialism" he advocates is directly the opposite of "State Socialism ...

the doctrine of Bismarck," that it "aims to abolish the distinction between possessing and non-possessing classes," that our present industrial institutions are based on _autocracy_ and _inequality_ instead of liberty, democracy, and equality, that under the _wages system_ or capitalism, the laborers or wage earners are practically unable to earn their daily bread "except by permission of the capitalists who own the tools by which the labor must be carried on." He then proceeds to what would be regarded by many as a thoroughly Socialist conclusion: "The real and radical remedy for the evils of capitalism is the organization of the industrial system in which the laborers or tool users will themselves become the capitalists or tool owners; in which, therefore, the class distinction which exists under capitalism will be abolished."[36] And what separates the advanced "State Socialism" of Mr.Hearst's brilliant editor, Mr.Arthur Brisbane, from the Socialism of the organized Socialist movement?
Has not Mr.Brisbane hinted repeatedly at a possible revolution in the future?
Has he not insisted that the crux of "the cost of living question" is not so much the control of prices by the private ownership of necessities of life (as some "State Socialist" reformers say, and even some official publications of the Socialist Party), as the _exploitation_ of the worker _at the point of production_, the fact that he does not get the full product of his labor--phrases which might have been used by Marx himself?
The _New York Evening Journal_ has even predicted an increasing conflict of economic interests on the political field--failing to state only that the people's fight must be won by a class struggle, a movement directed against capitalism and excluding capitalists (except in such cases where they have completely abandoned their financial interests).
Asked whether the influence of the Interests (the "trusts") would increase or diminish in this country in the near future, the _Journal_ answered:-- "The influence of the interests, which means the power of the trusts, or organized industry and commerce, will go forward steadily without interruption.
"Just as steadily as early military feudalism advanced and grew, UNTIL THE PEOPLE AT LAST CONTROLLED IT AND OWNED IT, JUST SO STEADILY WILL TO-DAY'S INDUSTRIAL FEUDALISM advance and grow without interruption UNTIL THE PEOPLE CONTROL IT and own it.
"The trusts are destined to be infinitely more powerful than now, infinitely more ably organized.
"And that will be a good thing in the long run for the people.