1 62 ARISTOCRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book ii concerned, may appropriate much of the gross 



product or little ; or they may leave the whole of it 



to be divided amongst their employees. What they 



The question actually have done, or do, or may do, in this 



of how much . . 



the few respect, is another question altogether, and will be 



thproduct is discussed hereafter separately. The essence of 

 question" 6 tne wage-system, in so far as it has influenced 



altogether. ^e. actual processes of production, is in the power 

 it gives to the few to direct the producers, not 

 in the power it gives them to appropriate the pro- 

 ducts. It will indeed require very little reflection 

 to show us that if the great men in the industrial 

 world would only develop and use their faculties, 

 without any motive of ambition or self-interest 

 to stimulate them, --as indeed at the present 

 moment we are assuming that they do, they could 

 use the wage -system for the purpose of directing 

 industry merely by monopolising the control of 

 capital without monopolising, and even without 

 sharing in, its possession. 



This truth will become plainer still when we 



slavery would reflect that if only certain conditions prevailed 

 which in many civilised countries survived till quite 



an u recently, the whole process of production as we now 



then thus show J 



us what the have it might be carried on without any wage- 



function of capital at all. These conditions are those of the 



s corvee system, under which peasants and others who 



owned the lands upon which they lived, and main- 



tained themselves on those lands in a certain posi- 



tion of independence, were compelled to place their 



labour, for so many days a week, at the absolute 



