War of the Classes | Page 3

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War of the Classes
by Jack London

Contents:

Preface The Class Struggle The Tramp The Scab The Question of the
Maximum A Review Wanted: A New Land of Development How I
Became a Socialist

PREFACE

When I was a youngster I was looked upon as a weird sort of creature,
because, forsooth, I was a socialist. Reporters from local papers
interviewed me, and the interviews, when published, were pathological
studies of a strange and abnormal specimen of man. At that time (nine
or ten years ago), because I made a stand in my native town for

municipal ownership of public utilities, I was branded a "red-shirt," a
"dynamiter," and an "anarchist"; and really decent fellows, who liked
me very well, drew the line at my appearing in public with their sisters.
But the times changed. There came a day when I heard, in my native
town, a Republican mayor publicly proclaim that "municipal ownership
was a fixed American policy." And in that day I found myself picking
up in the world. No longer did the pathologist study me, while the
really decent fellows did not mind in the least the propinquity of myself
and their sisters in the public eye. My political and sociological ideas
were ascribed to the vagaries of youth, and good-natured elderly men
patronized me and told me that I would grow up some day and become
an unusually intelligent member of the community. Also they told me
that my views were biassed by my empty pockets, and that some day,
when I had gathered to me a few dollars, my views would be wholly
different,--in short, that my views would be their views.
And then came the day when my socialism grew respectable,--still a
vagary of youth, it was held, but romantically respectable. Romance, to
the bourgeois mind, was respectable because it was not dangerous. As a
"red-shirt," with bombs in all his pockets, I was dangerous. As a youth
with nothing more menacing than a few philosophical ideas, Germanic
in their origin, I was an interesting and pleasing personality.
Through all this experience I noted one thing. It was not I that changed,
but the community. In fact, my socialistic views grew solider and more
pronounced. I repeat, it was the community that changed, and to my
chagrin I discovered that the community changed to such purpose that
it was not above stealing my thunder. The community branded me a
"red-shirt" because I stood for municipal ownership; a little later it
applauded its mayor when he proclaimed municipal ownership to be a
fixed American policy. He stole my thunder, and the community
applauded the theft. And today the community is able to come around
and give me points on municipal ownership.
What happened to me has been in no wise different from what has
happened to the socialist movement as a whole in the United States. In
the bourgeois mind socialism has changed from a terrible disease to a
youthful vagary, and later on had its thunder stolen by the two old
parties,--socialism, like a meek and thrifty workingman, being
exploited became respectable.

Only dangerous things are abhorrent. The thing that is not dangerous is
always respectable. And so with socialism in the United States. For
several years it has been very respectable,--a sweet and beautiful
Utopian dream, in the bourgeois mind, yet a dream, only a dream.
During this period, which has just ended, socialism was tolerated
because it was impossible and non-menacing. Much of its thunder had
been stolen, and the workingmen had been made happy with full
dinner-pails. There was nothing to fear. The kind old world spun on,
coupons were clipped, and larger profits than ever were extracted from
the toilers. Coupon-clipping and profit-extracting would continue to the