70 THE CLASS STRUGGLE IMPERIALISM AND THE MIDDLE CLASS 71 Capital itself and does in no way interfere with the fact that the State is dominated by the Interests of the Moneykings.
But how to explain that we do not see a strong fight of the independent capitalists against the monopolists who evidently take a part from their sacred profits? To those who consider class struggles from the narrow point of mere conflicts between the economic interests of groups and individuals, this lack of fighting spirit must look inexplicable.
Conflicts of economic interests, however, only get the wider meaning of class struggles, in so far as they represent the clash of an uprising class with the powers that be. In the conAlict between the highly concentrated monopoly and the independent capitalist, the latter represents the past instead of the future and his power, therefore, is insignificant. The independent capitalist can and will be swallowed by Big Capital, and a real opposition would only help to hasten the process for those in revolt. Only the workers are indispensable for any form of capitalist profit and there lies the strength for final victory. Conditions are ripe for a Socialist commonwealth, if the workers only develop the power of their number and their organization. The only chance for the masters to postpone their downfall is to disorganize and to divide the working class, by bribing certain groups and certain leaders.
The Moneykings are willing to pay for service and they may grant considerable allowances to independent capitalists or leading employers. It is part of their wasteful expenditure for the upkeep of the present system not only to have an army and a police, churches and professors to subjugate and to fool the workers, but also to allow a class of smaller capitalists to gain such profits as to make them feel comfortable enough to support and defend the system. It is this same policy that allows some superior officials and also the upper layers of labor to secure a larger salary or wage.
This explains the ideology of these groups in favor of Imperialism. It goes far in explaining the collapse of the Socialist parties built up greatly on the middle class groups of better paid workers, intellectuals, officials and small capitalists. The privileged position of these groups when compared with the great army of average workers, combined with the absence of class power to defend these privileges, gives them an interest in supporting the powers that control the privileges and makes them dependent tools of Imperialism. The more powerful the particular group of Imperialists upon whose favors these servile groups depend, the better chances for well paid jobs and other favors and bribes, which gives a material basis for modern nationalism, whose main feature is the fact that it is not national. Loyal to the Imperialistic Unit, they must adapt themselves to the most curious combinations of heterogeneous nations and governments and must change the object of their devotion with a readiness of mind far more surprising than was ever accomplished under the slogan, The King is dead, long live the King.
These groups have no economic strength because they are not vital to production. They can be substituted or eliminated if necessary and have largely the character of capitalist servants.
And we know that servants never made a good material for the support of class conscious workers. They will continue to cooperate with the old masters as long as these are in a position to promise rewards for service. They will desert the old ruling class as soon as its power is waning beyond repair. And then they will ask the favor of the new powers by claiming to have been in sympathy with them all the time.
The only class that is fit to bring about the Social Revolution is the great mass of average workers, who produce the surplus value, who are indispensable in the process of production, upon whose exploitation is built the whole system of capitalist organization and capitalist wealth.
Nationalism in its modern Imperialistic form is the ideology which binds together the middle classes, including the upper layers of labor with the plutocratic masters of the world; Massaction the weapon of the workers to defeat this alliance.
The present class struggle must take the form of mass action against Imperialism.