Ethics
July 1905
The workers are now the only necessary class in society, and
upon them all tasks are devolving. To the capitalist remains the task
of tearing the coupons from his shares, and reaping the reward of his
abstinence – from labour.
The democratic ownership of the means of wealth production must
necessarily abolish the economic basis of classes and of class
antagonisms, and unite all in a bond of labour with identical
interests,
Under such conditions it must be unnecessary and above all
unprofitable for the vast majority to exploit a few.
Hence society will have but one aim, to lighten the toil and
increase the well-being of all by the greatest possible economy of
labour and life.
In the society of harmonised material interests that must result
from the abolition of class parasitism, the greatest well-being of the
individual will only be possible by promoting the well-being of all.
Thus will the welfare of all become, for the first time, the
immediate interest of each.
Socialism is, then, the ethics of humanity, the necessary
economic foundation of a rational code of morality. The interests of
the human race are bound up with the aspirations of the oppressed
working-class in its struggle with capitalist domination. As it has
very truly been said: “Militant, the workers’ cause is identified with
class; triumphant, with humanity.”
F.C.W.
Socialist Standard,
July 1905
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