What experience shows to the capitalist generally is a constantexcess of population, i.e., an excess in relation to the momentary requirementsof surplus-labour-absorbing capital, although this excess is made up ofgenerations of human beings stunted, short-lived, swiftly replacing eachother, plucked, so to say, before maturity.
[79] And,indeed, experience shows to the intelligent observer with what swiftnessand grip the capitalist mode of production, dating, historically speaking,only from yesterday, has seized the vital power of the people by the veryroot — shows how the degeneration of the industrial population is onlyretarded by the constant absorption of primitive and physically uncorruptedelements from the country — shows how even the country labourers, in spiteof fresh air and the principle of natural selection, that works so powerfullyamongst them, and only permits the survival of the strongest, are alreadybeginning to die off.
[80] Capital that has such goodreasons for denying the sufferings of the legions of workers that surroundit, is in practice moved as much and as little by the sight of the comingdegradation and final depopulation of the human race, as bythe probable fall of the earth into the sun. In every stockjobbing swindleevery one knows that some time or other the crash must come, but everyone hopes that it may fall on the head of his neighbour, after he himselfhas caught the shower of gold and placed it in safety.
Aprèsmoi le déluge! [After me, the flood] is the watchword of every capitalist and of everycapitalist nation. Hence Capital is reckless of the health or length oflife of the labourer, unless under compulsion from society.
[81]To the out-cry as to the physical and mental degradation, the prematuredeath, the torture of over-work, it answers: Ought these to trouble ussince they increase our profits? But looking at things as a whole, allthis does not, indeed, depend on the good or ill will of the individualcapitalist. Free competition brings out the inherent laws of capitalistproduction, in the shape of external coercive laws having power over everyindividual capitalist.
[82]
I was originally going to do soul crushing corporate negotiations, but fate has fallen where it shall.
