The Revolution, which affirmed the principle of democracy, in reality to date has produced only a plutocracy. The people govern themselves de jure; but they are de facto governed by a very small minority — the wealthy bourgeoisie, the capitalists. Since a plutocracy by its very nature is accessible to everyone alike, it remains a kingdom of free enterprise, or competition. But this freedom and equality of rights are far from being the direct result of the unconditional existence of inherited property, and its concentration in the hands of a small minority creates in the bourgeoisie a separate, privileged class; the overwhelming majority of members of the working class, deprived of all property despite its abstract freedom and equality of rights, in reality becomes an enslaved class of proletarians. However, the existence of the perpetual proletarian class, which constitutes the dominant trait of today’s West, is precisely in this regard denied any kind of justification. This is because if the old order depended on well-known absolute principles, the contemporary plutocracy may in its own interest rely on the strength of the fact, on historical conditions. But these conditions change; historical conditions also created ancient slavery, which did not prevent it from disappearing.
–Vladimir Solovyov, The Philosophical Principles of Integral Knowledge. trans. Valeria Z. Nollan (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 2008), 42.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In