geois, or their intellectual and moral leaders, simply followed the dictates of their pockets, personal or otherwise, as can easily be seen from numerous passages scattered in his many writings, and particularly in the "18th of Brumaire."
What makes the bourgeois character unfit for socialist co-operation, and his ideology one of the chief mainstays of capitalism, is the independence which the possession of property gives him. While he has no particular love for his property, or, to be more exact, for the objects of his property, he values very much the independent social status which the possession of property gives him, no matter what this property consists of. As a matter of fact it is not the particular property that he is concerned about, but its social exchange-value. For the purpose of his social status it is not the actual objects of his property that count, but the social attributes and possibilities which attach to all property. That is why he stands up for the abstract principle of private property, something which the peasant is very little concerned about as long as its practical enjoyment is not interfered with. The social existence of the old-fashioned bourgeois, his everyday economic life, make him accustomed to strive for and cherish this independence founded upon the possession of property, and his ideology becomes decidedly individualistic. In his foremost intellectual representatives this crystallizes into some such system as that of Herbert Spencer, and looks upon socialism as a form of slavery. The alertness and aggressiveness of the class only accentuate the craving of each individual for absolute economic freedom, for being let alone to fight the battles of life. And the success of the class only whets its appetite for further conquests, and makes it impatient of any restraint, while its intellectual achievements give it one of the brightest weapons ever wielded by a ruling class.
A good deal has been written and said about the supposed great influence of force as a social factor, and again
