100%
Gradually, I came to hate them.
Interesting. Wonder why...
So called democracy exists in this world, which means the rule of the people by the people. Now, the people must posses some means of giving expression to their thoughts or their wishes. Upon examining this problem more closely, we see that the people themselves have no original convictions of their own. Their convictions are formed, of course, just as everywhere else. The decisive question is who enlightens the people; who educates them?
Capital actually rules in those countries; that is, nothing more than a clique of a few hundred men who posses untold wealth and, as a consequences of the peculiar structure of their national life, are more or less independent and free. They say: "Here we have liberty" By this they mean, above all, an uncontrolled economy, and by an uncontrolled economy, the freedom not only to acquire capital but to make absolutely free use of it. That means freedom from national control or control by the people both in the acquisition of capital and it's employment. This is really what they mean when they speak of liberty.
These capitalists create their own press and then speak of "freedom of the press". In reality, every one of the newspaper has a master, and in every case this master is the capitalist, the owner. This master, not the editor, is the one who directs the policy of the paper. If the editor tries to write other than what suites the master, he is ousted the next day. This press, which is the absolutely submissive and characterless slave of his owners, molds public opinion. Public opinion thus mobilized by them is, in its turn, split up into political parties. The difference between these parties is small -- you know them, of course - they were always one and the same.
The matters are usually so arranged that families are divided up, one member being conservative, another liberal, and a third belonging to an alternative party. Actually all three sit together as members of the family, decide upon their common attitude and determine it. A further point is that the "elected people" actually form a community which operates and controls all these organizations. For this reason, the opposition in America is always the same, for on all essential matters in which the opposition has to make itself felt, the parties are always in agreement. They have one and the same conviction and through the medium of the press mold public opinion along corresponding lines.
One might well believe that in these countries of liberty and riches, the people must have an unlimited degree of prosperity. But on the contrary it is precisely in these countries that the distress of the masses is greater than anywhere else. One might think, perhaps, that at least in America itself every person must have his share of these riches. By no means! In that country class distinction is the crassest imaginable. There is poverty - incredible poverty - on the one side, and equally incredible wealth on the other. They have not solved a single problem. In a country which ought to have more than enough bread and every sort of fruit we find millions of lower classes who have not even enough to fill their stomachs and go about hungry. A nation which could provide work for the whole world must acknowledge the fact that it cannot even abolish unemployment at home.
It is self-evident that where this democracy rules, the people as such are not taken into consideration at all. The only thing that matters is the existence of a few hundred gigantic capitalists who own all the factories and their stock and, through them, control the people. The masses of the people do not interest them in the least. They are interested in them just as parties in former times - only when elections are being held, when they need votes. Otherwise, the life of the masses is a matter of complete indifference to them.
It is shown by the whole economic structure - the selfishness of a relatively small stratum rules under the mask of a democracy. The egoism of a relatively very small social class.