oprietary class, the worker being now dependent on that
class for leave to earn a living."[185]

The Surplus-Value Doctrine, like the preceding doctrines, is founded
rather upon imagination than upon fact. In the first place, it is
absurd to speak of a "capitalist class" which, having a "monopoly of
the means of production," exploits "the naked and propertyless
labourer." This picture is a fancy picture. In the second place,
"class" is not synonymous with "caste." The population is not divided
into two rigidly defined and limited castes of capitalists and
wage-earners. There is neither a monopoly of capital nor a monopoly of
labour. Capital is founded by thrift. Most respectable workmen are
capitalists to a greater or lesser extent. Every day workmen become
capitalists. It should not be forgotten that many of the wealthiest
men, such as Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Krupp, the first
Rothschild, Sir Thomas Lipton, Passmore Edwards, and many others, have
risen from the ranks and were working men--and every day capitalists
lose their money and become workmen. Workmen may become capitalists by
thrift. Co-operating workmen in England, France, Germany, and other
countries own vast industrial undertakings, banks, &c. In those
districts where thrift and co-operation are general (France,
Switzerland, Holland) the "naked and propertyless labourers"
disappear, whilst in equally prosperous districts where improvidence
is general, they are many. The prosperity of the working classes in
France, Switzerland, Holland, and other countries disproves the
assertion that the workman is condemned to everlasting poverty because
of the Surplus-Value Doctrine.

Assertions in support of the "Surplus-Value Doctrine" such as
"Carnegie and other millionaires have wrung their wealth literally out
of the bodies of the underfed"[186] are as malicious as they are
untrue. Men like Carnegie and Krupp have not "wrung their wealth out
of the bodies of the underfed," but out of Nature. They have created
vast industries in barren places, and the industries which they have
created nourish now tens of thousands of working men. Men like Krupp
and Carnegie have diminished misery, not increased it. Their capital,
created by their brains with the assistance of labour out of Nature,
has rather enriched labour than that labour has enriched Carnegie and
Krupp. Their wealth is not dead wealth; it produces wages and articles
of use. The "Surplus-Value Doctrine"