without ever thinking of leading a nobleman's life for themselves, as the Rothschilds do.
In a society so enfevered by the passion for the success which can be obtained in competition, all the actors walk straight before them like veritable automata, without taking any notice of the great ideas of the sociologists; they are subject to very simple forces, and not one of them dreams of escaping from the circumstances of his condition. Then only is the development of capitalism carried on with that inevitableness which struck Marx so much, and which seemed to him comparable to that of a natural law. If, on the contrary, the middle class, led astray by the chatter of the preachers of ethics and sociology, return to an ideal of conservative mediocrity, seek to correct the abuses of economics, and wish to break with the barbarism of their predecessors, then one part of the forces which were to further the development of capitalism is employed in hindering it, an arbitrary and irrational element is introduced, and the future of the world becomes completely indeterminate.
This indetermination grows still greater if the proletariat are converted to the ideas of social peace at the same time as their masters, or even if they simply consider everything from the corporative point of view; while Socialism gives to every economic contest a general and revolutionary colour.
Conservatives are not deceived when they see in the compromises which lead to collective contracts, and in corporative particularism,[1] the means of avoiding the Marxian revolution;[2] but they escape one danger only to
- ↑ [This refers to the conduct of former syndicates which limited their ambitions to the interests of their own handicraft without concerning themselves with the general interests of the working classes.—Trans. Note.]
- ↑ There is constant talk nowadays of organising labour, i.e. of utilising the corporative spirit by giving it over to the management of well-intentioned, very serious and responsible people, and liberating the
