95 



many others stained by the very products of 

 its own degeneracy as I have mentioned con- 

 cerning backward social selections. 



For example, it is certain that the workmen 

 of the contemporary period of bourgeois 

 civilisation have generally a physical and 

 moral existence superior to that of past 

 centuries ; but it cannot, however, be denied 

 that their condition as free wage earners is 

 inferior in more than one point to the condition 

 of the slaves of antiquity and of the serfs of the 

 Middle Ages. 



The slave of antiquity was, it is true, the 

 absolute property of his master, of the free 

 man, and he was condemned to an almost 

 bestial life ; but it was to the interest of the 

 master to secure to him at least his daily 

 bread, for the slave was part of his patrimony 

 like his oxen and horses. 



Similarly, the serf of the soil, in the Middle 

 Ages, enjoyed certain customary rights which 

 attached him to the land and secured to him at 

 least except in case of scarcity daily bread. 

 The free wage earner of the modern world, 

 on the contrary, is always condemned to 

 labour not fit for a human being both by its 

 length and its character. This is the justifica- 

 tion for the claim for an eight hours' day, 

 which can already reckon more than one 

 victory, and which is destined to a certain 

 triumph. As no permanent juridical relation 

 connects him either with the capitalist land- 

 lord, or with the land, his daily bread is not 

 secured to him, because the employer has no 

 longer any interest in feeding and maintaining 



