them. It has also laid the mechanical foundation for the future greatness of the working class by changing the methods of production from their narrow individual foundation to a broad social base.
No less contradictory is the process of accumulation of capital in its effects on the capitalist class itself. As we have already seen, the accumulation of capital is accompanied by a falling rate of profit. This naturally tends to retard the progress of the process of accumulation, and works in the nature of an automatic brake. This, however, is not the only way in which the process of accumulation counteracts its own tendencies thereby checking the tempo of its growth. Every invention of a new machine, while an evidence of growing accumulation of capital, and itself a means to its increased accumulation, is at the same time the means of an enormous destruction of existing capital. As was already pointed out, our vast accumulations of wealth consist in aggregations of machinery. But every invention of a new machine makes useless the machine the place of which the new one is to take, and the capital invested in the old machines is thereby totally destroyed. The progress of accumulation of capital is therefore accompanied by enormous destruction of existing capital, which naturally retards the growth of the sum-total of capital. Besides, the invention of new machinery, by diminishing the time necessary for the production of commodities, and thereby lowering their values, lowers the value of all existing capital. This, again, has a tendency to retard the process of accumulation, that is the growth of the sum-total valuation of the machinery and other commodities of which the capital possessed by the capitalist class consists.
The capitalists as a class might regard with equanimity these retarding tendencies or automatic checks in the accumulation of capital, for the net result of the contradictory tendencies is still a rapid enough growth of the accumulated mass of capital to suit even the most exacting of capitalists. But the equanimity of the individual capitalists is disturbed
