3 1 4 



ARISTOCRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book iv 



These impie- 



ments are like 



a race of iron 



as truly as hye 



negroes would 



indirectly, 



in the same 

 way. 



a race of iron slaves. The amount of wealth which 

 the employment of a machine adds to the amount 

 that would be produced without it by a given 

 number of labourers, is produced by the machine 



..-. . . i i i r i i 



itselt just as truly as it would be if the machine, 

 instead of a structure of wheels and framework, 

 too k t h e f orm o f a gang of artificial negroes, who 



e> o e> 



only betrayed the fact that they were not human 

 by the heat of their breath, an occasional unearthly 

 whistle, and the different language in which they 

 required to have their orders given them. The 

 machine produces this increment, but certain men 

 produced the machine ; and therefore the increment 

 is in reality produced by the men, just as truly 

 as when a murdered man has been killed by a 

 bullet from a rifle, his death has been caused 

 by the murderer who aimed and discharged the 

 weapon. 



And what is true of fixed capital is true of wage 

 capital also ; for fixed capital, such as machines, 

 buildings, or railways, is the result of wage capital, 

 as employed to direct labour, and is therefore wage- 

 capital externalised in the objective results of its em- 

 ployment. But fixed capital, or a man's productive 

 power externalised, differs from his productive power 

 when exercised by himself through wage capital. It 

 is a part of his power which he can separate from 

 his own personality, and which he can make over 

 to others, just as a slave-owner might make over 

 a body of slaves ; only these are slaves whose 

 enslavement does them no wrong, and who belong 



