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suffer from hunger (25). In fact centralised industry neededpauperism, so that the price of labour power did not increasebeyond the cost of its production. The modern industrial systemand its representatives had therefore the highest interest in pre-venting the advancement of the worker (26). Similarly, saysProf. Glaser, intimately connected with the writer mentioned, “Noreal judge of the teachings of national economy will assert thatunder the present condition of production in European States theworking class as a class can raise itself by its own power from itsposition” (27). England is, according to this writer, becauseeconomically the furthest developed, in the worst socialposition—the country of massed distress, close on the brink ofrevolution.
To these fathers of the present State-Socialism Catholic authorslike Joerg, Bishop Ketteler, and others link themselves. Accord-ing to all of them the impossibility of an elevation of the workerson the basis of the existing economical system is an axiom, and by itthey support their more or less far-reaching Socialistic de-mands (28).
VI. This teaching, like that of Radical Socialism, depends on thecommon principle of view that the modern economical developmentbinds the worker to the minimum standard of life, and that onthis basis a continuous improvement of his position, especially byincreases of wages, is impossible. This view, which is nothingelse than a condensation of Ricardo’s wage-theory, has been aban-doned in later literature. The so-called Manchester school, as wellas the historical school, acknowledges the possibility, even thenecessity, of a rise in the standard of living of the workers, alsocontinuous increases of wages, on the ground and as a consequenceof economical progress.
25. Compare Wagener’s speech on the occasion of the proposal of Schulze-Delitsch regarding: the coalition right of employer and employed, sitting ofthe Prussian Parliament, llt.h Feh . 1865. Further: “Past, Present, andFuture of National Political Economy.” by Oswald Stein (a known pseudonymfor Wagener). Berne and Leipzig , 1880, p. 126.
26. Wagener’s “ Staatslexikon,” vol. XV., Art.,“ Pauperism . ” Further,the book just quoted, pp. 131, 132, 122
27. Compare Glaser: “Elevation of the Working Classes to EconomicalIndependence ” ("Berlin , 1865).
28. Jiirg : “ History of the Social-Political Parties in Germany ” (Freiburg i.Br., 1867), p. 36.
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