f 1847--among _transitional measures_.

Marx says that he and Engels "inserted this appropriation of ground rent
by the State among many other demands," which, as also stated in the
Manifesto, "are self-contradictory and must be such of _necessity_." He
explains what he means by this in the same letter. In the very year of
the Manifesto he had written (in his book against Proudhon) that this
measure was "a frank statement of the hatred felt by the industrial
capitalist for the landowner, who seems to him to be a useless,
unnecessary member in the organism of Capitalist society." Marx demanded
"the abolition of property in land, and the application of all land
rents to public purposes," _not because this is in any sense the
smallest installment of Socialism, but because it is a progressive
capitalistic measure_. While it strengthens capitalism by removing "a
useless, unnecessary member," and by placing it "on a still larger
foundation than it has at the present," it also matures it and makes it
ready for Socialism--ready, that is to say, as soon as _the working
people capture the government and turn the capitalists out, but not a
day sooner_.[92] Until that time even the most grandiose reform is
merely "a Socialistically-fringed attempt to save the rule of
capitalism."

Other "transitional measures" mentioned by Marx and Engels in 1847, some
of which had already been taken up as "Socialistically-fringed attempts
to save the rule of capitalism" even before their death were:--

The heavily graduated income tax.
The abolition of inheritance.
A government bank with an exclusive monopoly.
A partial nationalization of factories.
(No doubt, the part they would select would be that operated
by the trusts.)
Government cultivation of waste lands.

Here we have a program closely resembling that of "State capitalism." It
omits the important labor legislation for increasing efficiency, since
this was unprofitable under competitive and extra-governmental
capitalism, and in Marx's time had not yet appeared; _e.g._ the minimum
wage, a shorter working day, and workingmen's insurance. As Marx and
Engels mention, however, the substitution of industrial education for
child labor (one of the most important and typical of these reforms),
they would surely have included other measures of the same order, had
they been practicable and under discussion at the time.

There can be little doubt that