"First of all there can be no doubt that, no matter how much alike the purely economic tendencies and the psychological counter-tendencies evoked by them may be in forcing the development toward socialism, there still exists a certain antagonism between them. It is quite possible, for instance, that during long periods of time the psychological counter-tendencies may not be strong enough to exert any considerable influence on the purely economic tendencies, the concentration of industrial undertakings, the accumulation of capital, and the impoverishment of the masses. Where the circumstances have thus shaped themselves the hope for socialism lies principally in the economic tendencies. It is different, however, where the purely economic process has an equally strong psychological process to counterbalance it. There the growing accumulation of capital in the hands of the capitalist class will be accompanied by the growing political and economic power of the working class. And this growing political and economic power of the working class will manifest itself by checking more or less effectively the purely economic process of concentration and especially the process of impoverishment. Whoever, therefore, desires to uphold the Marxian theory of concentration and accumulation to its full extent in the face of the daily power of the organized proletariat, does not realize that he has undertaken a quite hopeless task: For he asserts that the purely economic tendency of the capitalistic mode of production necessarily produces psychological counter-tendencies, and at the same time denies to these psychological counter-tendencies any real influence. It is therefore evidently very unwise in the socialist theoreticians to continue to expect the expropriation of the capitalists through the independent action of the inherent laws of capitalist production. On the contrary, the psychological counter-tendencies must paralyze the purely economic process with increased vigor and with the force of a natural law; that is to say, the breakdown of the capitalist system by its own weight must be steadily removed further and further from the realms of possibility."
The question of the breakdown of capitalism will be treated later, as already stated. But we want to point out here in addition to what we have already said, the dualism of the conception which regards the economic conditions and
