Love Your Bosses!

Students of philosophy who know their Marx will expect idealistic revivals from time to time, as class privileges become threatened. Working men must be diverted from working for their betterment (to their exploiters' detriment) by concentration on other-worldly things and trust in God. These students will not be surprised by the extravagant hysterics of the saved souls of the Oxford Group.

These "reformers" bear the trademark of the charlatan—the desire to reconcile social classes—an impossibility since the interests of the classes are diametrically opposed. In present society, for example, an increase in profit for one class must by sheer logical necessity entail a reduction in relative wages for the opposite class. They retain this much of the old order—and this much is the essence and the root of its rottenness.

Mr. Menzies resorts to the old dodge of blackguarding materialist philosophy. Yet we remember Plekhanov pointing out that philosophers have tended most towards romantic idealism when the morals of their people have been most sordidly debased. Macauley's schoolboy will tell you that idealism has been the prerogative of conservative classes, and of the capitalist class once it had securely captured power. History does not show that this class is particularly noted for altruism and philanthropy. If the spirit of Give is anywhere today, it is among working people.