e not undergone a
radical change, then we may, in the society of the future, look for
divergences of income in the limit of one to a thousand.

Therefore the principle that there shall be no more rich people must
again be substantially limited. We must say, "There will be people
receiving extraordinary incomes in kind to which must be added the
claims to personal service which these favoured persons will lay down
as conditions of their work."

In its external, arithmetical structure, the fabric of life and its
requirements in the new order will resemble that of to-day far more
closely than most of us imagine--on the other hand, the inward and
personal constitution of man will be far more different. Already we
can observe the direction of the movement.

Extravagance and luxury will continue to exist, and those who practise
it will be, as they are to-day, and more than to-day, the profiteers,
the lucky ones, and the adventurers. Excessive wealth will be more
repulsive than it is now; whether it will be less valued depends upon
the state of public ethics, a topic which we shall have to consider
later. It is probable that in defiance of all legislation wealth will
turn itself into expenditure and enjoyment more rapidly and more
recklessly than to-day.

But the relics of middle-class well-being will by that time have been
consumed; the families which for generations have visibly incorporated
the German spirit will less than others contrive to secure special
advantages by profiteering and evading the laws; as soon as their
modest possessions are taxed away or consumed they will melt into the
general mass of needy people who will form the economic average of the
future.

The luxury which will exhibit itself in streets and houses will have a
dubious air; every one will know that there is something wrong with
it, people will spy and denounce, and find to their disgust that
nothing can be proved; the well-off will be partly despised, partly
envied; the question how to suppress evasions of the law will take up
a good half of all public discussions, just as that of capitalism does
now. The hateful sight of others' prosperity cannot, even at home,
not to mention foreign countries, be withdrawn from the eyes of the
needy masses; capitalism will have merely acquired another name and
other representatives.

The fact that the average of more or less cultivated and responsible
folk are plunged in poverty will not be accepted as t