While, by the progress of collective industry, each
individual day's labor yields a greater and greater product, and
while, by necessary consequence, the laborer, receiving the same
wages, must grow ever richer, there exist in society classes
which THRIVE and classes which PERISH; laborers paid twice,
thrice, a hundred times over, and laborers continually out of
pocket; everywhere, finally, people who enjoy and people who
suffer, and, by a monstrous division of the means of industry,
individuals who consume and do not produce. The distribution of
well-being follows all the movements of value, and reproduces
them in misery and luxury on a frightful scale and with terrible
energy. But everywhere, too, the progress of wealth--that is,
the proportionality of values--is the dominant law; and when the
economists combat the complaints of the socialists with the
progressive increase of public wealth and the alleviations of the
condition of even the most unfortunate classes, they proclaim,
without suspecting it, a truth which is the condemnation of their
theories.
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