A definite class, the capitalist, acquires increasing industrial, political, and social power. The proletariat suffer increasing misery. They own nothing except their ability to labor. They are forced to throw this human quality on the commercial market and sell it to the highest bidder. But capitalism increases the number of the proletariat. This tendency, together with the increase in population, creates a superabundance of labor. Laborers are forced to compete in the labor market. The laborers who will sell their labor for the least wages will be employed. Capitalism thus forces wages to a mere subsistence level, with the result that the misery and suffering of the proletariat are greatly augmented. In this way the laborer is crushed by the operation of the iron law of wages. By the operation of the iron law, the capitalist is enabled to appropriate to himself an increasing amount of the earnings of labor. This appropriated amount is called the surplus value. Marx developed at length the concept of surplus value. Capitalism exploits the laborer by taking possession of as large a proportion of the earnings of labor as it can obtain--through its might and its shrewdness. The growth of capitalism, also, causes a class consciousness to develop among the members of the proletariat. This class consciousness is increasing. It produces labor organizations; these organizations are acquiring vast power. The struggles between them and the capitalistic classes go on. The two groups have little in common. By force of numbers the proletariat are bound finally to win, and to overthrow the capitalistic classes which are now in power. They will seize the means of production and manage them for the good of all. Marx did not outline an utopia. He described the historical evolution of society as he saw it, and he participated in plans for the organization of all laborers for their common good. Inasmuch as Marx advocated compulsory labor, the laboring class under Marxian socialism would include all people. Marx advocated an equal distribution of wealth, not in the sense of the popular misconception of that term, but in the sense that the earnings from the industry shall be distributed to the workers in proportion to their achievements.