Page:Karl Kautsky - The Class Struggle (Erfurt Program) - tr. William Edward Bohn (1910).djvu/176

 In character and view of life the slum proletariat approaches the lowest ranks of the farmer and small bourgeois class. Like these, it has despaired of its own power and seeks to save itself through aid received from above.

It was from the last mentioned classes that capitalism drew its first supply of wage-labor. It needed not so much skilled workers as docile ones. And since the slum-proletariat and the sections of the population most closely related to it had already learned obedience and humility they were well fitted to supply the demand. With workers from this source capitalism could develop without opposition. They were easily exploited to the limit. They would work long hours amidst almost intolerable conditions. Whoever wishes to learn of the deplorable state of the proletariat during the early days of modern industry has but to read Frederich Engles' classic work on the working-class of England.

At the time of the beginning of modern industry the term proletariat implied absolute degeneracy. And there are persons who believe this is still the case. But even in the earliest days there was the beginning of a great gulf between the working-class proletariat and the slum proletariat.

The slum proletariat has always been the same, whether in modern London or ancient Rome.