There is, then, this very grave disadvantage of insecurity everywhere, and particularly for the mass of the people, who live under permanent conditions of insecurity; nearly all the wage-earners have had experience at some time, longer or shorter, of insufficiency through unemployment. Capitalism leaves free men under a sense of acute grievance (which they would _not_ feel if they were slaves, accustomed to a regular and fixed status in society), and, what is worse, Capitalism _in its later stages_ need not provide for the livelihood of the mass of citizens, and, in effect, _does not_ so provide. The magnitude of these evils is obvious. A man who is a free man, a citizen, able in theory to take part in the life of the State, equal with the richest man before the law, yet finds himself living on a precarious amount of necessaries of life doled out as wages week after week; he sees his labour exploited by others and suffers from a sense of injustice and oppression. The wealth of the small, owning, class does not seem a natural adjunct to its social position, as it does in the slave-owning state; for there is no tradition behind that class; it has no “status,” that is, no general respect paid to it as something naturally--or, at any rate, traditionally--superior to the rest of men. Many a modern millionaire capitalist, exploiting the labour of thousands of his fellows, is of a lower culture than most of his labourers; and, what is more, he may in a few years have lost all his economic position and have been succeeded by another, even baser than himself. How can the masses feel respect for such a man in such a position of chance advantage? It is inevitable that a moral evil of this sort should make the whole State unstable. You cannot make of great differences in wealth between citizens a stable state of affairs, save by breeding respect for the owners of great wealth. But the more the turmoil of Capitalism increases the less respect these owners of great wealth either deserve or obtain: the less do they form a class, and the less do they preserve traditions of any kind. And yet it is under these very conditions of Capitalism that there is a greater disparity of wealth than ever the world knew before! It is clear that society in such a condition must be as unstable as an explosive. So much for the first great disadvantage of Capitalism, chaos. But the second main disadvantage--the fact that Capitalism in its later stages ceases to guarantee the livelihood of the people--is a little less easy to understand. Indeed, most people who discuss Capitalism, even when they strongly oppose it, seem unable to grasp this second disadvantage--so let us examine it closely. I have said that Capitalism, in its later stages, _does not provide for the maintenance of the mass of the people_. To see how true this is, consider an extreme case.