are really weapons in the hands of reactionaries, having for their
real object the creation of a new middle-class made out of the
working-class and at their expense; the raising, in short, of a new
army against the attack of the disinherited.

There is no end to this kind of dodge, nor will be apparently till
there is an end of the class which tries it on; and a great many of
the Democrats will be amused and absorbed by it from time to time.
They call this sort of nonsense "practical;" it SEEMS like doing
something, while the steady propaganda of a principle which must
prevail in the end is, according to them, doing nothing, and is
unpractical. For the rest, it is not likely to become dangerous,
further than as it clogs the wheels of the real movement somewhat,
because it is sometimes a mere piece of reaction, as when, for
instance, it takes the form of peasant proprietorship, flying right
in the face of the commercial development of the day, which tends
ever more and more towards the aggregation of capital, thereby
smoothing the way for the organized possession of the means of
production by the workers when the true revolution shall come:
while, on the other hand, when this attempt to manufacture a new
middle-class takes the form of co-operation and the like, it is not
dangerous, because it means nothing more than a slightly altered form
of joint-stockery, and everybody almost is beginning to see this.
The greed of men stimulated by the spectacle of profit-making all
around them, and also by the burden of the interest on the money
which they have been obliged to borrow, will not allow them even to
approach a true system of co-operation. Those benefited by the
transaction presently become eager shareholders in a commercial
speculation, and if they are working-men, as they often are, they are
also capitalists. The enormous commercial success of the great co-