The book begins with an historical overview of early socialist thinkers, focusing particularly on Robert Owen and his utopian experiments at New Lanark and New Harmony. Spargo details Owen's rise as a successful manufacturer and his later transition into an advocate of cooperative communities, analyzing the social horrors of the industrial revolution and the pathetic revolts of the Luddites as a background to these early movements. The narrative then shifts to the emergence of modern scientific socialism with the publication of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Spargo outlines the personal backgrounds of Marx and Engels, detailing their intellectual partnership and the profound influence of earlier English Ricardian writers.
The core of the socialist philosophy is explored through the materialistic conception of history, which posits that economic production and exchange form the foundation upon which political, legal, and intellectual institutions are built. The historical progression of society is traced from primitive tribal communism through chattel slavery and feudalism to the modern capitalist era. Spargo explains how capitalism developed through the machine age and argues that competitive processes inherently lead to the concentration of wealth and industrial monopoly. The controversial doctrine of the class struggle is thoroughly examined as a persistent historical reality arising from the antagonism of interests between employing and employed classes. Finally, the text explores the economic theories of Marx, including the analysis of commodities, value, and surplus value, concluding with a discussion of the practical means by which a socialist state might eventually be realized through gradual and legal political action by the working class.
