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quent and more violent; because in the same proportion in which the amount of production, and therefore the demand for the extension of the market, increases, the market of the world continually contracts, and ever fewer markets remain to be exploited; since every previous crisis has added to the commerce of the world a market which was not known before, or had before been only superficially exploited by commerce. But capital not only lives upon labor. Like a lord, at once distinguished and barbarous, it drags with it to the grave the corpses of its slaves and whole hecatombs of laborers who perish during crises. Thus we see that if capital increases fast, competition among the laborers increases still faster, that is, the means of employment and subsistence decline in proportion at a still more rapid rate; and yet, none the less the most favorable condition for wage labor lies in the speedy increase of capital.
