A great number of philosophers, moralists, poets, statisticians, and economists have seen in economic conditions the “causa causarum” of morality, and consequently also of crime. Pietro Ellero, among others, says very decisively: “From private property are derived all crimes, or almost all. Property engenders cupidity and haughtiness on the one side and depravity on the other, even when it does not produce the perfect tyranny of the one class and the degradation of the other. It is the cause of most of the evil passions, faults, and crimes that are committed, of the troubles, anxieties, sadness, and rancor from which both rich and poor suffer alike. The immoral influence of property is continued afterwards, and that terribly, in the present organization of the family, constructed, as it is, almost always upon the basis of calculation!” [237] It is incontestable that economic conditions have a direct influence upon the origin of crime. The lack of the means of satisfying the numerous wants of a man is already a goad to incite him to procure these means in any way whatever, honest or dishonest. And it is the dishonest way that one will choose by preference when society makes it difficult or impossible to act otherwise. A London pickpocket gets $1500 a year on the average; on the other hand, the misery of those who wish to earn their living honestly is indescribable. Further, the honest man’s chance of being killed or becoming incapable of working is greater than the thief’s chance of being punished. Honest work results in fewer advantages and more dangers than dishonest work. The indirect influence is not less important than the direct. War, our present industry, the family, marriage, political institutions, revolutions, vagrancy, prostitution, education, etc. are important causes of crime, but they can all be reduced to economic causes. According to many persons education is the one means of preventing moral evils, but John Stuart Mill has already said: in our present society the poor have no education, and that of the rich is bad. There is no possibility of a good education if a certain material well-being is lacking. Hence those who expect everything from education under the present conditions are wrong. But where does well-being cease and poverty begin? Both are only relative conceptions; consequently we cannot fix their limits. In order to attain the minimum of criminality in any given society there must be the certainty of the means of subsistence, stability of economic conditions, and equality in the distribution of wealth.