with which all sorts of contradictions are found in Marx, according to his critics, as was already pointed out in another connection. It took Marx several bulky volumes to expound systematically his theoretical system, and then his work remained unfinished. He could not at each point recount all the circumstances which might affect or modify the tendencies or laws discussed, and which might be contained in other parts of his work. He assumed that the reader would remember them and read all the passages relating to the same subject together. Sometimes he purposely gave absolute form to a statement which he intended to qualify, and made certain assumptions he himself did not believe in, intending later to modify the absolute form of the statement or show the incorrectness of the assumption, in order to more clearly and systematically present his theory.
As regards the matter now under discussion there can be no doubt but that Marx did not mean to say that all those who are reduced from the ranks of capitalism by the progress of capitalism become proletarians. Some of them may, for a time at least, remain in the position of half capitalist, half proletarian, in that they may derive a part of their income from their property and part thereof from their labor. But even those who have lost all their property may still become proletarians in the antique sense only, that is, persons who possess nothing, but they may not be proletarians in the modern sense of the word, that is, laborers who are not in possession of their means of production. They may cease to be capitalists and still not become laborers; they may live by their wits instead of by their labor, or become mere sponges on their former co-classites. It is our opinion that, with the progress of capitalism, the percentage of this last mentioned class of people is growing larger among those who lose caste by reason of the elimination process of the middle class.
Hence the cry of the so-called "new middle class," raised by the Revisionists. Hence, also, the peculiar features of the statistics as to incomes. It is not because there is no
