ive to
excel; but the more imbecile he becomes, the more dependent he is upon
Alberic, and the more the responsibility of keeping the world-machine in
working order falls upon Alberic. Consequently, though Alberic in 1850
may have been merely the vulgar Manchester Factory-owner portrayed by
Engels, in 1876 he was well on the way towards becoming Krupp of Essen
or Carnegie of Homestead.

Now, without exaggerating the virtues of these gentlemen, it will
be conceded by everybody except perhaps those veteran German
Social-Democrats who have made a cult of obsolescence under the name
of Marxism, that the modern entrepreneur is not to be displaced and
dismissed so lightly as Alberic is dismissed in The Ring. They are
really the masters of the whole situation. Wotan is hardly less
dependent on them than Fafnir; the War-Lord visits their work, acclaims
them in stirring speeches, and casts down their enemies; whilst Loki
makes commercial treaties for them and subjects all his diplomacy to
their approval.

The end cannot come until Siegfried learns Alberic's trade and shoulders
Alberic's burden. Not having as yet done so, he is still completely
mastered by Alberic. He does not even rebel against him except when he
is too stupid and ignorant, or too romantically impracticable, to see
that Alberic's work, like Wotan's work and Loki's work, is necessary
work, and that therefore Alberic can never be superseded by a warrior,
but only by a capable man of business who is prepared to continue his
work without a day's intermission. Even though the proletarians of all
lands were to become "class conscious," and obey the call of Marx by
uniting to carry the Class struggle to a proletarian victory in
which all capital should become common property, and all Monarchs,
Millionaires, Landlords and Capitalists become common citizens, the
triumphant proletarians would have either to starve in Anarchy the next
day or else do the political and industrial work which is now being
done tant bien que mal by our Romanoffs, our Hohenzollerns, our Krupps,
Carnegies, Levers, Pierpont Morgans, and their political retinues. And
in the meantime these magnates must defend their power and property
with all their might against the revolutionary forces until these
forces become positive, executive, administrative forces, instead of the
conspiracies of protesting, moralizing, virtuously indignant amateurs
who mistook Marx for a man of affairs and Thiers for a sta