, are all slave-owners of the peasants who have insufficient land, and of the unskilled workmen who⁠—apparently as a result of most varied causes, but in reality as a result of one cause alone (the appropriation of land by the landed proprietors)⁠—are obliged to give their labour and even their lives to those who possess the advantages land affords. These two reasons⁠—that the new slavery is less evident than the old, and that the new slave-owners are much more numerous than the old ones⁠—account for the fact that the slave-owners of our day do not see, and do not admit, the cruelty and criminality of their position, and do not free themselves from it.

The slave-owners of our day not only do not admit that their position is criminal, and do not try to escape from it, but are quite sure that property in land is a necessary institution, essential to the social order, and that the wretched condition of the working classes⁠—which they cannot help noticing⁠—results from most varied causes, but certainly not from the recognition of some people’s right to own land as private property.