still uncultured and badly organised. In such dark corners everything is much as it was in the old days. Often enough, indeed, it is impossible to undertake the necessary improvements at present, since these would need an entirely new installation and complete reorganisation. However, a great deal can be done even without these extensive changes, if only larger and yet larger sections of the masses become interested in the improvement of working conditions.
130. What is social Welfare Work?
The capitalist system, as we have seen, aims at the extraction of profit from the working class. Wage workers, proletarians, were simply means of enrichment for the capitalist. When these living tools were worn out, when they had become unprofitable or superfluous, they were ruthlessly thrown away like a squeezed lemon or an egg-shell. The miseries of unemployment, illness, old age, mutilation, were nothing to the capitalist, who would jettison huge masses of persons without even trying to help them — or would help only the most devoted among their trusty servants, those from whom all the vital juices had already been sucked.