(3) Capitalism, the present system, is also a class-labor system, an organized, legalized opportunity for wholesale class robbery; and under this form of class-labor system, with class robbery legally arranged for, class robbery is, today, of course, altogether respectable, abundantly profitable and temptingly easy—and therefore, naturally, inevitable.
The purpose of the present capitalist form of society is the special welfare of only a part of society, the capitalist class, and is, therefore, an unsocial purpose.
Peace is impossible—while capitalism lasts.
Under this form of society the masters, the capitalist class, are in possession of the means of production; that is, in legal possession of the industrial foundations of society, and also in legal control of the arsenals, cannon, soldiers, forts, courts and legislatures, and are thus in perfect position to defend and extend their industrial robbery.
The capitalists (so far as they receive social incomes without rendering equivalent social service) are thus parasites, aggressive social parasites. (See footnote, pages [298]–99.)
That is admitted. That is admitted, explained and condemned even by the President of the American Sociological Society, Dr. Lester F. Ward, Professor of Sociology in Brown University.[[309]]
This parasitism of capitalism is easily seen in this way:
Wealth equivalent to three hundred and sixty-nine tons of gold ($200,000,000) was given by inheritance to William H. Vanderbilt’s eight children.[[310]]
If the daughter of John D. Rockefeller, senior, should by inheritance receive one-half of the present six-hundred-million-dollar fortune, she would receive, without rendering any service whatever, wealth equivalent to five hundred and fifty-three tons of gold.
Billions of dollars’ worth of mines, railways, factories, forests and other means of production, will, by inheritance, without function,—that is, without service—legally fall into the hands of the children of the present capitalist class, whether those children are intelligent, virtuous and industrious, or stupid, vicious and lazy. And thus, like the children of kings and nobles, they will be in position to win the race of life without running, in position to prey upon others in the struggle for existence, in legal position to procure substance without service.