suffice for all." But the fact is that those in power have long been consuming not what they need, but what they do not need; all they can get. Therefore, however much advantages may increase, those who are at the top will appropriate them for themselves.
One cannot consume more than a certain quantity of necessaries, but to luxury there is no limit. Thousands of bushels of bread may be used for horses and dogs; millions of acres of land turned into parks, and so on, as is now the case. So that no increase of productiveness and wealth will augment one little the welfare of the lower classes, so long as the upper classes have the power and the desire to spend the surplus wealth on luxury. On the contrary, the increase of productiveness, the greater mastery of the forces of nature, only gives greater power to the upper classes, to those in authority,—power to keep this authority over the lower working classes.
And every attempt on the part of the lower classes to make the rich divide with them,—revolutions, strikes,—cause strife, and the strife—a useless waste of wealth. "Better let no one have it, if I cannot,' say the contending parties.
The conquest of nature and the increased production of material wealth in order that it may overflow the world, so that every one may have his share, is as unwise a proceeding as would be to increase the quantity of wood thrown into a stove, in order2
