Page:Karl Marx - Wage Labor and Capital - tr. Harriet E. Lothrop (1902).djvu/89

 wage-slaves, proletarians, who, while their numbers increase constantly, are at the same time constantly being superseded by new labor-saving machinery; in short, society brought to a deadlock, out of which there is no escaping but by a complete remodeling of the economic structure which forms its basis. From this point of view, forty years ago, Marx pronounced, in principle, in favor of free trade as the more progressive plan, and, therefore, the plan which would soonest bring capitalist society to that deadlock. But if Marx declared in favor of free trade on that ground, is that not a reason for every supporter of the present order of society to declare against free trade? If free trade is stated to be revolutionary, must not all good citizens vote for protection as a conservative plan?

If a country nowadays accept free trade, it will certainly not do so to please the socialists. It will do so because free trade has become a necessity for the industrial capitalists. But if it should reject free trade, and stick to protection, in order to cheat the socialists out of the expected social catastrophe, that will not hurt the prospects of socialism in the least. Protection is a plan for artificially manufacturing manufacturers, and therefore also a plan for artificially manufacturing wage-laborers. You cannot breed the one without breeding the other. The wage-laborer everywhere follows in the footsteps of the manufacturer; he is like the "gloomy care" of Horace, that sits behind the rider, and that he cannot shake off wherever he goes. You cannot escape fate; in other words, you cannot escape the necessary consequences of your own actions. A system of production based upon the exploitation of wage-labor, in which wealth increases in proportion to the number of laborers employed and exploited, such a system is bound to