ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that in order to exert moral suasion sufficient to pervert the egoism of the oppressed classes, the co-operation of unproductive labourers is required, whose special mission it is to reconcile the groaning masses with the capitalistic system. The great crises that morality has passed through in history during periods of social decomposition and recomposition set forth this interesting process with marvellous clearness. Thus all moral revolutions following the same course pass which correspond to the double process of social decomposition and social recomposition. The effects which economic revolutions exert upon the morals of the labouring classes; but economic decomposition and recomposition exercise diametrically opposite influences upon the morality of the proprietary class. The process of economic decomposition itself effects this moral dissolution, by cutting off the support that the unproductive labourers have, up to this, accorded—or rather sold—to capital, and causing them eventually to join forces with the productive labourers.
