tio to each other. It is one of the contradictions of capitalist society, that while it needs farm products in order to sustain itself, farming does not fit into its scheme. In such typically capitalistic countries as England, for instance, this contradiction was solved by practically eliminating farming, and drawing its food supply from abroad. But as this is an obviously impossible solution for the whole capitalistic world, attempts have been made to capitalize farming. So far, this has met with only indifferent success. That is why the "agrarian question" is now uppermost in all economic discussions. From all this it is perfectly plain that if we want to understand the capitalistic system we must study the factory product.
The most characteristic feature of the factory product as a natural phenomenon, that which marks its contrast to the farm product, is its comparative independence of climatic and other natural phenomena—an independence which makes it practically reproducible at will. Unlike the farm product, which depends for its successful production on the varying conditions of soil and climate (conditions usually not subject to change at the hands of man) and is therefore limited in its production by a force to which all men must bow, the factory product knows no other superior but man who reproduces it at will. The limits of the production of the factory product are not given by nature, but imposed by man; production of the factory product increases or slackens in accordance with the demands of the "market;" that is to say, its limits are set by the relations of the members of society in the distribution of the manufactured product among themselves. In this it typifies the capitalist system. With the advent of the capitalist system poverty and riches have ceased to be a natural condition; they have become a social relation.
Let us, then, take the factory product and follow its natural course in life; let us examine the manner of its production, the course it takes in the circulation of goods to the point of its ultimate destination,—consumption; let
