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War of the Classes-Part15_JACK LONDON(1876-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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great United States Steel Corporation. The president of that



corporation knows his business. Very good. Let him become

Secretary of the Department of Iron and Steel of the United States.



But, since the chief executive of a nation of seventy-odd millions

works for $50,000 a year, the Secretary of the Department of Iron



and Steel must expect to have his salary cut accordingly. And not

only will the workers take to themselves the profits of national and



municipal monopolies, but also the immense revenues which the

dominant classes today draw from rents, and mines, and factories,



and all manner of enterprises.

All this would seem very like a dream, even to the worker, if it



were not for the fact that like things have been done before. He

points triumphantly to the aristocrat of the eighteenth century, who



fought, legislated, governed, and dominated society, but who was

shorn of power and displaced by the rising bourgeoisie. Ay, the



thing was done, he holds. And it shall be done again, but this time

it is the proletariat who does the shearing. Sociology has taught



him that m-i-g-h-t spells "right." Every society has been ruled by

classes, and the classes have ruled by sheer strength, and have been



overthrown by sheer strength. The bourgeoisie, because it was the

stronger, dragged down the nobility of the sword; and the



proletariat, because it is the strongest of all, can and will drag

down the bourgeoisie.



And in that day, for better or worse, the common man becomes the

master--for better, he believes. It is his intention to make the



sum of human happiness far greater. No man shall work for a bare

living wage, which is degradation. Every man shall have work to do,



and shall be paid exceedingly well for doing it. There shall be no

slum classes, no beggars. Nor shall there be hundreds of thousands



of men and women condemned, for economic reasons, to lives of

celibacy or sexual infertility. Every man shall be able to marry,



to live in healthy, comfortable quarters, and to have all he wants

to eat as many times a day as he wishes. There shall no longer be a



life-and-death struggle for food and shelter. The old heartless law

of development shall be annulled.



All of which is very good and very fine. And when these things have

come to pass, what then? Of old, by virtue of their weakness and



inefficiency in the struggle for food and shelter, the race was

purged of its weak and inefficient members. But this will no longer



obtain. Under the new order the weak and the progeny of the weak

will have a chance for survival equal to that of the strong and the



progeny of the strong. This being so, the premium upon strength

will have been withdrawn, and on the face of it the average strength



of each generation, instead of continuing to rise, will begin to

decline.



When the common man's day shall have arrived, the new social

institutions of that day will prevent the weeding out of weakness



and inefficiency. All, the weak and the strong, will have an equal

chance for procreation. And the progeny of all, of the weak as well



as the strong, will have an equal chance for survival. This being

so, and if no new effective law of development be put into



operation, then progress must cease. And not only progress, for

deterioration would at once set in. It is a pregnant problem. What



will be the nature of this new and most necessary law of

development? Can the common man pause long enough from his



undermining labors to answer? Since he is bent upon dragging down

the bourgeoisie and reconstructing society, can he so reconstruct



that a premium, in some unguessed way or other, will still be laid

upon the strong and efficient so that the human type will continue



to develop? Can the common man, or the uncommon men who are allied

with him, devise such a law? Or have they already devised one? And



if so, what is it?

HOW I BECAME A SOCIALIST






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