only protection of peoples and countries against us*.
On the ruins of natural and hereditary aristocracy we built an aristocracy of our intellectual class—the money aristocracy. We have established this new aristocracy on the qualification of wealth, which is dependent upon us, and also upon science, which is promoted by our wise men.
Our triumph was also made easier because, through our connections with people who were indispensable to us, we always played upon the most sensitive chords of the human mind, namely, greed, and the insatiable selfish desires of man. Each of these human weaknesses taken separately is capable of killing initiative and of placing the will of the people at the disposal of the buyer of their activities.
Abstract liberty offered the opportunity for convincing the masses that government is nothing but the manager representing the owner of the country, namely, the people, and that this manager can be discarded like a pair of worn-out gloves.
The fact that the representatives of