Since the race was young there have been class struggles. In every state
of society, ancient and modern, labor has been exploited, degraded and
in subjection.
Civilization has done little for labor except to modify the forms of its
exploitation.
Labor has always been the mudsill of the social fabric—is so now and
will be until the class struggle ends in class extinction and free
society.
Society has always been and is now built upon exploitation—the
exploitation of a class—the working class, whether slaves, serfs or
wage-laborers, and the exploited working class in subjection have always
been, instinctively or consciously, in revolt against their oppressors.
Through all the centuries the enslaved toilers have moved slowly but
surely toward their final freedom.
The call of the Socialist party is to the exploited class, the workers
in all useful trades and professions, all honest occupations, from the
most menial service to the highest skill, to rally beneath their own
standard and put an end to the last of the barbarous class struggles by
conquering the capitalist government, taking possession of the means of
production and making them the common property of all, abolishing
wage-slavery and establishing the co-operative commonwealth.