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Updated: July 19, 2025
"It must be admitted," write Le Rossignol and Stewart, "that the benefits of land reform and other Liberal legislation have accrued chiefly to the owners of land and other forms of property, and the condition of the landless and propertyless wage earners has not been much improved." Indeed, the condition of the workers is little, if any, better than in America. Mr.
What importance was to be attached to the propertyless? They, forsooth, were regarded as irresponsible and vulgar; their opinions and aspirations were held of small account. The churches professed to preach to all; yet they depended largely upon men of property for contributions; and moreover the clergy, at least the influential of them, were propertied men themselves.
This marked the beginning of a reign of terror during which no propertyless worker or union sympathizer was safe from attack. About this same time the Commercial Club made a pretense of investigating the shingle weavers' strike.
Now it is just this growing consciousness of the fact that as long as there exists in society a propertied class living on the labour of a propertyless one, there MUST be a struggle always going on between those two classes it is just the dawning knowledge of this fact which should show us what civilization can hope for namely, transformation into true society, in which there will no longer be classes with their necessary struggle for existence and superiority: for the antagonism of classes which began in all simplicity between the master and the chattel slave of ancient society, and was continued between the feudal lord and the serf of mediaeval society, has gradually become the contention between the capitalist developed from the workman of the last-named period, and the wage-earner: in the former struggle the rise of the artisan and villenage tenant created a new class, the middle class, while the place of the old serf was filled by the propertyless labourer, with whom the middle class, which has absorbed the aristocracy, is now face to face: the struggle between the classes therefore is once again a simple one, as in the days of the classical peoples; but since there is no longer any strong race left out of civilization, as in the time of the disruption of Rome, the whole struggle in all its simplicity between those who have and those who lack is WITHIN civilization.
In order to do away with the economic waste of profitable "human material" and the still more serious exhaustion of the supply, the propertyless wage earner or salaried man for the first time obtains a definite status in the official political economy; he becomes the property of the nation viewed "as a business firm," a part of "our" capital.
What were their aspirations, difficulties, movements and struggles? While Government, controlled by both the men and the standards of property, was being used as a distributing instrument for centering resources and laws in the hands of a mere minority, what were its methods in dealing with the lowly and propertyless? Furthermore, this contrast is indispensable for another reason.
Then this demand will be brought forward in the legislative bodies; then the limits and the forms and the means of this intervention will be discussed by reason and science; and then be assured of this! those men who understand your situation and are devoted to your cause, armed with the glittering steel of science, will stand at your side and protect your interests; then you, the propertyless class of society, will have only yourselves and your own unwise choices to blame if the representatives of your class remain in a minority.
Modern capitalistic production on the other hand which is hardly three hundred years old and which first became dominant with the introduction of the greater industry about one hundred years ago, has, in this short time, developed antagonisms in distribution concentration of capital on the one hand in the possession of a few persons and, on the other, concentration of propertyless masses in the great cities which must of necessity bring it to an end.
Vanderbilt, and the different groups before him, in control of the road had easily evaded it, just as in every direction the whole capitalist class pushed aside law whenever law conflicted with its aims and interests. It was the propertyless only for whom the execution of law was intended.
And the worthy man will place his index finger at the tip of his nose, draw two deep breaths of thought, and then give it out as his opinion, that it is a shame for many to possess "nothing," not even the most absolute necessities, while others roll in shameless millions, not only to the detriment of the propertyless masses, but also to that of honest citizens. Aurea mediocritas.
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