There are, under capitalism, not only two industrial classes, but also two social classes. Industrial classes become social classes.
Johan Kaspar Bluntschli, one of Germany’s most eminent writers on political science, has this to say:
“Classes have very often been founded on the basis of property. In these constitutions ... property becomes the determining political force, and citizens are valued by amount of their income.... The Proletariate ... consists mainly of the waste of other classes, of those fractions of the population who, by their isolation and their poverty, have no place in the established order of society.” [That is, they are in no commanding relation to the industrially vital property.][[304]]
“Conversely, social rank depends on economic conditions; the state is made ... conservative ... by the economic interests at its foundation....
“Perhaps its [property’s] most important social effect has come to be the fact that the possession of property is so generally the basis of social differentiation. In earlier times, physical force, later, institutions of caste, were the basis of differentiation in society; wealth is the most universally recognized source of power, so that social rank is often determined by the possession of wealth.”—Professor Fairbanks, Yale University.[[305]]
And now the second proposition: Are these industries and the other industries really operated for the special benefit of part of society? The answer is clear in the following illustration:
If the profits on all these industries should, during the next twelve months, rise two billion dollars higher than usual, would the wages of the workers engaged in these industries be increased in that proportion? Most certainly they would not. You know very well they would not. But why not? Simply because these industries, like all other industries, are, under capitalism, operated for the special benefit of those, the capitalist class, who privately own these industries and buy labor-power, and, by this arrangement, live on profits,—on surplus value.[[306]]
And, finally, the third proposition: Do the industrial interests of these two industrial classes fundamentally conflict? Perhaps the answer will be clear in the following homely illustration:
If you are selling a horse, you wish to sell him for—say $300. But the buyer of the horse wishes to buy the horse for, say, $150.
Clearly there is a conflict of interests between the buyer of the horse and the seller of the horse.