This is perfectly plain: the lot of the laborer, his general condition as a member of society, must grow worse with the accumulation of capital, no matter whether his wages are high or low. His poverty, in the ordinary sense of that word, depends on the amount of wages he gets, but not his social condition. And for two reasons. In the first place, because the social condition of any man or class can only be determined by a comparison with the rest of the members or classes of that society. It is not an absolute but a relative quantity. Even the question of poverty is a relative one and changes from time to time with the change of circumstances. But the question of social condition can never be determined except by a reference to the other classes of society. This is decided not by the absolute amount of worldly goods which the workingmen receive, but by the relative share which they receive in all the worldly goods possessed by society. Thus considered it will be found that the gulf between the capitalist and the workingman is constantly growing wider. This is admitted by all as an empirical fact, and it has been proven by us in preceding chapters as a matter of theory.
This circumstance, that the welfare or misery of the working class must be considered and determined with relation to the wealth of society as a whole, and the share of the different classes therein, has been pointed out by Kautsky and Cunow. But Bernstein calls this "explaining away" the Marxian statements in Pickwickian manner, and points to the fact that Marx speaks also of "slavery, degradation, and exploitation." We confess that we cannot see the incongruity which Bernstein seems to see here. But we do see here once more how incapable Marx-critics are of grasping even comparatively simple points of Marxian theory. Franz Oppenheimer raises the point of the growing "exploitation" of the working class in a theoretical way. Says he: "Since Marx does not set a limit to the wages which may be paid except the profit of the capitalists, nor the depth to which the rate of profit of the capitalist may fall
