The economic foundations of society

This volume examines the societies of the civilised world - old and new - and its two distinct and separate classes.

Whilst one class accumulates in utter idleness, enormous and ever increasing revenues, the other, far more numerous, labours life-long for miserable wages.

One class lives without working, the other works without living or without a life worthwhile.

When confronted by such a contrast, the question must at once occur to every mind: is this sad state of affairs the result of inherent necessity, inseparable from the organic conditions of human nature; or is it merely the outcome of certain historical tendencies that are destined to disappear at a later stage of social evolution?