SLAVERY AND THE WAGE-SYSTEM 157 



really our first concern to examine relates to the means Book n 

 by which great men, whose greatness consists in the 

 fact that they are exceptional in their powers of 

 causing the production of wealth, and on whom conse- 

 quently the wealth of the whole community depends, 

 obtain a control over other men's productive actions. 



This control can be secured in two ways only, The great man 

 or else in some way that is a combination or modi- dtactkm can~ 

 fication of both. One of these ways is slavery ; S^r olLs 

 the other is the capitalistic wage-system. Let us ^J*^^ 8 

 consider how the two resemble each other, and also slave-system 



, . . rr and the wage- 



how they diner. system. 



They resemble each other because both, in so far 

 as they subserve progress, subserve it for precisely 

 the same reason. They are both contrivances by 

 which the superior few may secure, so far as industry 

 is concerned, the implicit obedience of the many. 

 On the private lives of the many their effects will be 

 widely different ; but so far as concerns their direct The siave- 



i j .1 system secures 



connection with industry their operation on men obedience b y 

 duringthe actual processesof production slavery and w^sys^m 

 the capitalistic wage-system differ only in this : that b y inducement - 

 the one secures the required industrial obedience by 

 operating on men's fears ; the other secures it by 

 operating on their desires and wills. Thus the 

 slaves who built the pyramids had each some speci- 

 fied task the making of so many bricks, the cutting 

 of such and such stones, or the fixing of bricks and 

 stones in such and such situations which had to be 

 performed if the pyramids were to be built at all. 

 So, too, if the Hotel Metropole at Brighton was to 



