“Classes have very often been founded on the basis of property. In these constitutions ... property becomes the determining political force, and citizens are valued by amount of their income.... The Proletariate ... consists mainly of the waste of other classes, of those fractions of the population who, by their isolation and their poverty, have no place in the established order of society.” [That is, they are in no _commanding relation_ to the industrially vital property.][304] “Conversely, social rank depends on economic conditions; the state is made ... conservative ... by the economic interests at its foundation.... “Perhaps its [property’s] most important social effect has come to be the fact that the possession of property is so generally the basis of social differentiation. In earlier times, physical force, later, institutions of caste, were the basis of differentiation in society; wealth is the most universally recognized source of power, so that social rank is often determined by the possession of wealth.”—Professor Fairbanks, Yale University.[305] And now the _second_ proposition: Are these industries and the other industries really operated for the _special benefit_ of _part_ of society? The answer is clear in the following illustration: If the profits on all these industries should, during the next twelve months, _rise two billion dollars higher than usual_, would the _wages_ of the workers engaged in these industries be _increased_ in _that proportion_? Most certainly they would not. You know very well they would not. But why not? Simply because these industries, like all other industries, are, under capitalism, operated for the special benefit of those, the capitalist class, who privately own these industries and buy labor-power, and, by this arrangement, live on profits,—on surplus value.[306] And, finally, the third proposition: Do the industrial interests of these two industrial classes fundamentally _conflict_? Perhaps the answer will be clear in the following homely illustration: If you are selling a horse, you wish to sell him for—say $300. But the buyer of the horse wishes to buy the horse for, say, $150. Clearly there is a conflict of interests between the buyer of the _horse_ and the seller of the _horse_. A wage-earner selling labor-power wishes to sell, say, eight hours labor-power for $6. The capitalist employer buying labor-power wishes to buy, say, nine hours labor-power for $2.50—in order to get the surplus value—that fascinating _surplus_. Thus there is a fundamental conflict between the industrial interests of this buyer of labor power and the industrial interests of this seller of labor-power. And it is just so with the two industrial classes. There is a fundamental conflict of industrial interests between the employer class buying labor-power and the working class selling labor-power.