Exploitation did not begin with capitalism though its form in earlier times was different and easier to understand. A slave, “owned body and soul” by a slave-owner, knew very well that he was labouring to keep the slave-owners as well as himself. He did not imagine that he was entering into a voluntary arrangement. Similarly a serf, who might be working unpaid for three days on the Lord of the Manor’s field and three days on his own, could clearly see that he was being robbed and exploited. As the Kentish priest John Ball, leader of the peasants revolt in 1381, pointed out in one of his stirring declarations, “things will never be well in England so long as there be villeins and gentle folk. By what right are they whom we call Lords greater folk than we? On what grounds have they deserved it? Why do they hold us in serfage? . . . How can they say or prove that they are better than we, if it be not that they make us gain for them by our toil when they spend in their pride? . . . They have leisure and fine houses ; we have pain and labour, the rain and the wind in the fields. And yet it is of our toil that these men hold their estate.” (Quoted in A Handbook of Socialism. W.D.P. Bliss. 1907. Swan Sonnenschein, p. 209.)

Exploitation still goes on though slavery and serfdom have long been abolished, but now it takes the form of “wage-slavery”. Then it was more open and unmistakeable, now it is less easily perceived because of the greater complexity of capitalism and particularly because the worker bargains with the capitalist to receive a certain agreed sum of money as wages.

Defenders of capitalism cleverly seize upon unessential and often no longer existing features of their system in their effort to show that property incomes arise from sources other than the exploitation of the workers. They talk of the thrift and self-denial of the capitalist. It is true that in the early days of capitalism a thrifty worker might sometimes hope to become owner of a small business, and exceptionally it can happen to-day, but it is mere playing with words to liken the wealthy man’s investment of part of his superfluous income to an act of self-denial or thrift ; not to mention the fact that the bulk of the present-day accumulations of wealth are not the result of saving by the present owners but are the result of inheritance.

Capitalists talk of their “work”, ignoring the fact that in their capacity as capitalists they do not engage in production themselves. If they choose to work that is something outside their function as capitalists. In the early days of capitalism the capitalist did normally play an active role in the work and management of his business, but now, with the rise of joint-stock companies in which ownership of the concern is in the hands of numerous shareholders, the typical capitalist is a mere passive investor, leaving the control of the business to a board of directors. Small undertakings, personally managed by a proprietor or partners, are no longer the predominant type of capitalist concerns. Even in the remaining small concerns the capitalist is an exploiter though he may at the same time take an active part in the work of the undertaking, and of course in such a case he expects to receive a larger income than if he were merely an investor.

Another defence of capitalism is that the capitalist is an indispensable “supervisor” or “organiser”. This also was true at one time but is now the exception. Once the concern has reached more than very small size the owners have to employ members of the working-class to do the supervising and organising work.

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