gering for surplus value, can only be impressed by touching the financial spot, its constitutional weak spot. The expense of militarism is the only thing that keeps it in bounds, at least as far as it is borne by the bourgeoisie itself. The ethics of profiteering, however, seeks and finds a way out that is as easy as it is base—the shifting of the greatest or a great part of the military burdens to the shoulders of those parts of the population that are not only the weakest, but for whose oppression and torture militarism is chiefly established. Like the ruling classes of other social orders the capitalist classes use their despotism, which is moreover based in the first place on the exploitation of the proletariat, not only in order to make the oppressed and exploited classes forge their own chains, but also to make them pay for themselves for those chains to as large an extent as possible. Not content with turning the sons of the people into the executioners of the people they press the executioners' pay as much as possible out of the sweat and blood of the people. And though here and there one is sensible of the bitterly provoking effect of that
