loser
class interest than landlords or capitalists. If one of those who are
in either of the latter classes is a spendthrift he loses his
advantage. If the non-capitalists increase their numbers, they
surrender themselves into the hands of the landlords and capitalists.
They compete with each other for food until they run up the rent of
land, and they compete with each other for wages until they give the
capitalist a great amount of productive energy for a given amount of
capital. If some of them are economical and prudent in the midst of a
class which saves nothing and marries early, the few prudent suffer for
the folly of the rest, since they can only get current rates of wages;
and if these are low the margin out of which to make savings by special
personal effort is narrow. No instance has yet been seen of a society
composed of a class of great capitalists and a class of laborers who
had fallen into a caste of permanent drudges. Probably no such thing is
possible so long as landlords especially remain as a third class, and
so long as society continues to develop strong classes of merchants,
financiers, professional men, and other classes. If it were conceivable
that non-capitalist laborers should give up struggling to become
capitalists, should give way to vulgar enjoyments and passions, should
recklessly increase their numbers, and should become a permanent caste,
they might with some justice be called proletarians. The name has been
adopted by some professed labor leaders, but it really should be
considered insulting. If there were such a proletariat it would be
hopelessly in the hands of a body of plutocratic capitalists, and a
society so organized would, no doubt, be far worse than a society
composed only of nobles and serfs, which is the worst society the world
has seen in modern times.

At every turn, therefore, it appears that the number of men and the
quality of men limit each other, and that the question whether we shall
have more men or better men is of most importance to the class which
has neither land nor capital.

VI.

_THAT HE WHO WOULD BE WELL TAKEN CARE OF MUST TAKE CARE OF HIMSELF._

The discussion of "the relations of labor and capital" has not hitherto
been very fruitful. It has been confused by ambiguous definitions, and
it has been based upon assumptions about the rights and duties of
social classes which are, to say the least, open to serious question as
regards their truth and ju