basis of the capitalistic system has of itself sufficed--at least in the
leading industries, for in the more unimportant branches this is far from
being the case--to do away with all those minor grievances which
aggravated the workman's fate during its earlier stages. And thus it
renders more and more evident the great central fact, that the cause of
the miserable condition of the working-class is to be sought, not in
these minor grievances, but _in the Capitalistic System itself_. The
wage-worker sells to the capitalist his labour-force for a certain daily
sum. After a few hours' work he has reproduced the value of that sum;
but the substance of his contract is, that he has to work another series
of hours to complete his working-day; and the value he produces during
these additional hours of surplus labour is surplus value, which cost the
capitalist nothing, but yet goes into his pocket. That is the basis of
the system which tends more and more to split up civilised society into a
few Rothschilds and Vanderbilts, the owners of all the means of
production and subsistence, on the one hand, and an immense number of
wage-workers, the owners of nothing but their labour-force, on the other.
And that this result is caused, not by this or that secondary grievance,
but by the system itself--this fact has been brought out in bold relief
by the development of Capitalism in England since 1847.

Again, the repeated visitations of cholera, typhus, smallpox, and other
epidemics have shown the British bourgeois the urgent necessity of
sanitation in his towns and cities, if he wishes to save himself and
family from falling victims to such diseases. Accordingly, the most
crying abuses described in this book have either disappeared or have been
made less conspicuous. Drainage has been introduced or improved, wide
avenues have been opened out athwart many of the worst "slums" I had to
describe. "Little Ireland" has disappeared, and the "Seven Dials" are
next on the list for sweeping away. But what of that? Whole districts