29]

The foregoing extracts make it clear that, in the eyes of Socialists,
practically all citizens, manual labourers excepted, are "drones and
parasites." Directors, managers, doctors, chemists, ships' captains,
teachers, &c., and even workmen of exceptional ability also, rob the
general body of workers of half their wages and subsist only owing to
the monopoly of property-holders who control the distribution of
wealth. Upon these curious premisses are based the conclusions: "The
profits and salaries of the class who share in the advantages of the
monopoly of the instruments of production, or are endowed by Nature
with any exceptional ability of high marketable value, amount
according to the best estimate that can be formed, to about
_460,000,000l._ annually, while out of a national income of some
_1,800,000,000l._ a year the workers in the manual labour
class--four-fifths of the whole population--obtain in wages not more
than _690,000,000l._ It may be safely said that the workers from top
to bottom of society pay a fine of one-half the wealth they produce to
a parasitic class before providing for the maintenance of themselves
and their proper dependents."[230] "It is this robbery and waste on
the part of the minority which keeps the majority poor."[231] "So long
as the instruments of production are in unrestrained private
ownership, so long must the tribute of the workers to the drones
continue, so long will the toiler's reward inevitably be reduced by
their exactions."[232]

"Socialism regards the capitalist proper not as a useful captain of
industry, but as a mere share-holding, dividend-drawing parasite upon
labour, and the Socialist party presses forward to his elimination
from the field of production."[233] "The workers who have produced all
this wealth only get a part--the smallest part at that--of the wealth
they produce. Now we Socialists say that this wealth produced by the
labour of the workers should belong to them, and not to the
capitalists who produce nothing. Seeing that the interest of the
worker is to get as much of this wealth, and on the other hand the
capitalist wants as much of this wealth, as he can get, therefore we
say that the interests of the workers and of the capitalists are not
identical, but opposite."[234] "The interest of the working class can
only be served even in the smallest degree by the curtailment of the
power of the master class; that every material advance is useless
except