“Let us sum up: the more productive capital grows, the more the division of labor and the application of machinery expand. The more the division of labor and the application of machinery expand, the more competition among the workers expands and the more their wages contract. In addition, the working class gains recruits from the higher strata of society also; a mass of petty industrialists and small rentiers are hurled down into its ranks and have nothing better to do than urgently stretch out their arms alongside those of the workers. Thus, the forest of uplifted arms demanding work becomes ever thicker, while the arms themselves become ever thinner.” Wage Labor and Capital