aws, customs, education, public opinion and morals are controlled
and shaped by economic conditions, or, in other words, by the dominant
ruling class which the economic system of any given period forces to
the front. The ruling ideas of each age have been the ideas of its
ruling class, whether that class was the patricians of ancient Rome, the
feudal barons of the middle ages, or the capitalists of modern times.
The economic structure of society largely controls and shapes all social
institutions, and also religious and philosophical ideas."

Or, take this, by Marx himself: "The mode of production obtaining in
material life determines, generally speaking, the social, political and
intellectual processes of life."

Does not that again agree exactly with the doctrine as I have stated it?

The doctrine is stated in nearly the same language by Loria and Ferri,
though Ferri calls it Economic Determinism, which seems to me a much
better and more exact name. Ferri points out that we must not forget the
intellectual factor and the various other factors, which though they are
themselves determined by the economic factor, in their turn become
causes acting concurrently with the economic factor. Loria deals with
this whole subject most exhaustively and interestingly in his recently
translated book "The Economic Foundations of Society." Curiously enough
in this long book he never once gives Marx the credit of having
discovered this theory, but constantly talks as though he--Loria--had
revealed it to a waiting world. The method of his book is the reverse of
scientific, as he first states his theory and conclusions and then
starts to scour the universe for facts to support them, instead of first
collecting the facts and letting them impose the theory upon his mind.
And his book is by no means free from inconsistencies and
contradictions. But while you cannot place yourselves unreservedly and
confidingly in his hands as you can in those of Karl Marx, still his
book has much value. He shows most interestingly how all the connective
institutions, as he calls religious and legal and political
institutions, have been moulded in the interest of the economically
dominant class, and how useful they have been in either persuading or
forcing the so-called "lower classes" to submit to the economic
conditions that were absolutely against their interests. But the system
of Wage Slavery is such a beautifully automatic system, itself
subjugating