THE INDUSTRIAL GROUP 795 



the origin of the movement is not hopeless misery, for this is no 

 characteristic of the proletariat. The cause is rather the contrast 

 which the laborer observes between his own frequently pinched posi- 

 tion and that superabundance of wealth in which many of the em- 

 ploying class live, wealth which the laborer has, in his own opinion, 

 produced. For in their service he wears himself out. And this 

 contrast is constantly brought to his attention, not so much because 

 he sees that insolent wealth used in display, oftentimes vain enough, 

 the poor serfs of the Middle Ages endured that sight, but rather 

 because he daily witnesses the accumulation of new fortunes, w r hose 

 possessors grow rich before his very eyes. Frederick Albert Lange 

 accurately and forcibly expressed this attitude when he once said, 

 " The spirit of jealousy never completely disappears while a poor 

 man lives in the neighborhood of a rich man; it may, however, be 

 rendered very dull by constant relative wealth." But by fluctuat- 

 ing relations and by every occasion which makes the present con- 

 trasts more striking, the feeling of envy is quickened. To this, what 

 we might call objective insecurity of wealth relations, which is 

 characteristic of our times, and which the proletariat observes, is 

 added another insecurity which for the laborer is a subjective one. 

 This is the uncertainty as to the means of his livelihood, the fact that 

 he does not know from day to day whether he is going to earn his 

 bread. For an industrial depression may result in the wholesale 

 discharge of laborers, and thus in widespread famine. 



It is this continual change which brings to a member of the pro- 

 letariat a consciousness of his position. The increasing intellectual 

 training, to which his life in great cities powerfully contributes, 

 enables and inspires him to reflect upon the causes of this insecurity 

 and upon the contrast between his own position and that of the rich. 

 And then a secret is revealed to him, the discovery of which becomes 

 the ground of justification for the modern agitations of the laboring 

 class, the secret, namely, that all the circumstances of his exist- 

 ence are not founded in unchangeable, natural relationships. On 

 the contrary, they are based upon the peculiarities of the prevailing 

 social and economic organization. " No man can assert any right 

 against nature, but in society distress at once assumes the form of 

 an injustice inflicted upon this or that class." (Hegel.) Thus the 

 ground is prepared upon which a social movement may be developed, 

 for now a point of attack is found, the existing social order. 



And to the extent that social criticism of this sort becomes refined 

 and sharpened, as discontent and the desire for improvement become 

 intensified, another circumstance which defines the position of the 

 wage-earner becomes more and more intolerable. This is his depend- 

 ence upon his employer. This dependence is no longer a legal 

 one, as in the time of slavery, but is no less complete on that account. 



