simply that he must not bring beings into the world whom he cannot
support. When once this subject is cleared from the obscurity thrown
over it by parochial laws and private benevolence, every man must see
his obligation. If he cannot support his children they must starve; and
if he marry in the face of a fair probability that he shall not be able
to support his children, he is guilty of all the evils which he thus
brings upon himself, his wife, and his offspring.

When the wages of labour are barely sufficient to support two children,
a man marries and has five or six, and finds himself in distress. He
blames the low price of labour. He blames the parish and the rich and
social institutions; but he never blames himself. He may wish he had
never married; but it never enters into his head that he has done
anything wrong. Indeed, he has always been told that to raise up
children for his king and country is a very meritorious act.

The common people must be taught that they themselves in such a case are
to blame, and that no one has power to help them if they act thus
contrary to the will of God. Those who wish to help the poor must try to
raise the relative proportion between the price of labour and the price
of provisions, instead of encouraging the poor to marry and overstock
the labour market. A market overstocked with labour and an ample
remuneration to each labourer are objects perfectly incompatible with
each other.

It is not enough, however, to abolish all the positive institutions
which encourage population, but we must endeavour at the same time to
correct the prevailing opinions which have the same effect. The public
must be made to understand that they have no _right_ to assistance, and
that it is the duty of man not only to propagate his species but to
propagate virtue and happiness.

Our private charity must also be discriminate. If we insist that a man
shall eat even if he do not work, and that his family shall be supported
even if he marry without prospect of supporting a family, we merely
encourage worthless poverty. We must not put a premium on idleness and
reckless marriages, and we must on no account do anything which tends to
remove in any regular manner that inequality of circumstances which
ought always to exist between the single man and the man with a family.

KARL MARX

Capital: A Critical Analysis

Heinrich Karl Marx was born at Treves, in Rhenish Prussia, May 5,
1818, a