Page:Karl Kautsky - The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) - tr. William Edward Bohn (1910).djvu/172

Gradually, however, there grew up beside these classes, which really took part in production, another class, that of personal servants. Some of the poor turned for support to the families of the greater exploiters. In the Middle Ages this meant entering the personal service of the nobles, rich merchants, or higher clergy. The poor entered this service, not to assist in productive labor, but to act as mercenary soldiers or mere lackeys. The ancient feeling of mutual interest has disappeared, but a new one has taken its place. There are various grades of servants, with different work and different pay. Each individual is eager to improve his position by any means within his power. His success is dependent on the master's favor. The more skillfully he adapts himself, the better are his prospects. Again, the larger the income of the master and the greater his power and distinction, the more plentiful are the crumbs which fall to his menials; this holds especially of those menials who are kept for show, whose only task is to make a parade of the superfluities which their master enjoys, to assist him in squandering his wealth, and to stand by him loyally if he commits crime or folly. The modern servant, accordingly, comes into relations of peculiar intimacy with his master, and thus he has naturally developed into a foe of the oppressed and exploited working-class; not infrequently he is more ruthless than his master in his treatment of them. The master, if he has any discretion at all, will not kill the hen that lays the golden egg; he will preserve her, not only for himself,