VI. The Future of Capital and Human Labor

Similar things have been said many times. I was particularly surprised to hear the expression “spiritual capitalism”. I don't know what that means, especially how it might be used after a lecture in which the circulation of capital was discussed in the way I discussed it. Intellectual owners – yes, honored attendees, just try to think with realities! Imagine the social organism – the speaker has not described it as he imagines it – according to the few hints the speaker has made. Then you will have to say: What is it exactly, if, let us say, intellectual workers work alongside manual workers under some kind of socialist order? I do not know what kind of difference it is supposed to make to my economic organism that the intellectual worker works alongside the manual worker. I have expressly stated: ownership ceases at the moment when the capital is realized, that is, when the means of production are there. How one can then speak of intellectual ownership is completely beyond me. From the particular experiences mentioned by the esteemed speaker, one can of course derive anything one wants. One can of course derive a great deal from the atrophy of the soul and the like. I did not find it very tasteful when the speaker concluded by saying that he would leave the middle class to me so that the proletariat would be all the more assured to him. Well, there is no need to get involved in such things, because whether you ultimately see it as an inflammatory phrase or not is entirely a matter of taste.