War of the Classes | Page 5

glimmerings of something finer and God-like, with here
and there sweetnesses of service and unselfishness, desires for
goodness, for renunciation and sacrifice, and with conscience, stern and
awful, at times blazingly imperious, demanding the right,--the right,
nothing more nor less than the right.
JACK LONDON. OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA. January 12, 1905.

THE CLASS STRUGGLE

Unfortunately or otherwise, people are prone to believe in the reality of
the things they think ought to be so. This comes of the cheery optimism
which is innate with life itself; and, while it may sometimes be
deplored, it must never be censured, for, as a rule, it is productive of
more good than harm, and of about all the achievement there is in the
world. There are cases where this optimism has been disastrous, as with
the people who lived in Pompeii during its last quivering days; or with
the aristocrats of the time of Louis XVI, who confidently expected the
Deluge to overwhelm their children, or their children's children, but
never themselves. But there is small likelihood that the case of perverse
optimism here to be considered will end in such disaster, while there is
every reason to believe that the great change now manifesting itself in
society will be as peaceful and orderly in its culmination as it is in its
present development.
Out of their constitutional optimism, and because a class struggle is an
abhorred and dangerous thing, the great American people are
unanimous in asserting that there is no class struggle. And by
"American people" is meant the recognized and authoritative mouth-
pieces of the American people, which are the press, the pulpit, and the

university. The journalists, the preachers, and the professors are
practically of one voice in declaring that there is no such thing as a
class struggle now going on, much less that a class struggle will ever go
on, in the United States. And this declaration they continually make in
the face of a multitude of facts which impeach, not so much their
sincerity, as affirm, rather, their optimism.
There are two ways of approaching the subject of the class struggle.
The existence of this struggle can be shown theoretically, and it can be
shown actually. For a class struggle to exist in society there must be,
first, a class inequality, a superior class and an inferior class (as
measured by power); and, second, the outlets must be closed whereby
the strength and ferment of the inferior class have been permitted to
escape.
That there are even classes in the United States is vigorously denied by
many; but it is incontrovertible, when a group of individuals is formed,
wherein the members are bound together by common interests which
are peculiarly their interests and not the interests of individuals outside
the group, that such a group is a class. The owners of capital, with their
dependents, form a class of this nature in the United States; the
working people form a similar class. The interest of the capitalist class,
say, in the matter of income tax, is quite contrary to the interest of the
laboring class; and, VICE VERSA, in the matter of poll-tax.
If between these two classes there be a clear and vital conflict of
interest, all the factors are present which make a class struggle; but this
struggle will lie dormant if the strong and capable members of the
inferior class be permitted to leave that class and join the ranks of the
superior class. The capitalist class and the working class have existed
side by side and for a long time in the United States; but hitherto all the
strong, energetic members of the working class have been able to rise
out of their class and become owners of capital. They were enabled to
do this because an undeveloped country with an expanding frontier
gave equality of opportunity to all. In the almost lottery-like scramble
for the ownership of vast unowned natural resources, and in the
exploitation of which there was little or no competition of capital, (the
capital itself rising out of the exploitation), the capable, intelligent
member of the working class found a field in which to use his brains to
his own advancement. Instead of being discontented in direct ratio with

his intelligence and ambitions, and of radiating amongst his fellows a
spirit of revolt as capable as he was capable, he left them to their fate
and carved his own way to a place in the superior class.
But the day of an expanding frontier, of a lottery-like scramble for the
ownership of natural resources, and of the upbuilding of new industries,
is past. Farthest West has been reached, and an immense volume of
surplus capital roams for investment and nips in the bud the patient
efforts of the embryo