III. THE CAPITALIST CLASS.
1. Commerce and Credit.
In countries where the capitalist system of production prevails the masses of the people are forced down to the condition of proletarians; that is to say, of workers who are divorced from their instruments of production so that they can produce nothing by their own efforts, and, therefore, are compelled to sell the only commodity they possess—their labor-power. To this class, also, belong the majority of the farmers, small producers and traders; the little property they still possess today is but a thin veil, calculated rather to conceal than to prevent their dependence and exploitation.
Over against this class we find a small group of property holders—capitalists and landlords—who alone possess the most important means of production and the most important sources of livelihood, the exclusive ownership of which invests them with the power to subjugate the class of propertyless and to exploit them.
While the majority of the people sink ever deeper in want and misery, this small group of capitalists and landlords, together with their parasites, appropriate all the tremendous advantages that have been wrung from nature, especially through the progress made by the natural sciences and their practical application.
There are three sorts of capital: merchant's capital, interest-bearing capital and industrial
43
