f the Pioneers, who represent a great exception in the
working class, partly by the fact that this branch of manufacturing is
far from being one of those which require the heaviest capitalization,
and partly because this factory is not large enough to count among the
really large enterprises, for in these the proportion, even in this
branch of industry, would be a very different one. And, finally, it
may be added that through the development of industrialism itself, and
through the progress of civilization, this proportion must increase
daily. For the progress of civilization consists in the very fact that
from day to day more natural mechanical power--more machinery--takes
the place of human labor, and that accordingly the proportion of the
amount of invested capital to the amount of human labor becomes
larger; so then, if in that factory of the Pioneers sixteen hundred
stockholders were necessary to raise the capital to employ five
hundred workmen, a proportion of one to three, the proportion among
other workmen in other branches and in larger establishments--and also
in consideration of the daily advance of civilization--will be one to
four, one to five, six, eight, ten, twenty, etc. However, let us keep
this proportion of one to three. To establish a factory in which five
hundred workmen find employment, I need sixteen hundred workingmen
stockholders in order to have the necessary capital. Very well: as
long as I try to establish one, two, three, etc., factories, there is
no difficulty in theory (always in theory, Gentlemen--in imagination),
I call to aid (always in theory) the three, four, etc., times the
number of workingmen stockholders. But if I extend this association to
the whole working class--and their cause, not that of individuals who
wish to improve their position, is in question here--if in course of
time I wish to establish factories enough to occupy the whole working
class, where shall I get the three, five, ten, twenty-fold number of
the whole working class who, as workingmen stockholders, must stand
behind the workmen occupied in the factories in order to establish
these factories?

You see then that it is a mathematical impossibility to free the
working class in this way--by the exertions of its members as merely
single individuals; that only very confused, uncritical imaginations
can lend themselves to these illusions, and that the only way to this
end, the only way for the abolition of that cruel