The work ethic split into conservative and progressive versions in the late eighteenth century (see Chapter 3). In Chapter 4, I argued that the conservative version triumphed through the mid-nineteenth century, an era characterized by rapidly rising productivity and stagnant wages, and hence by an increasing share of income taken by capital owners. This is what I call the hijacking of the work ethic by capital owners. The next three chapters examine the secularized progressive work ethic, developed by thinkers who sympathized with workers – not just in the sense of proposing policies they thought would help them, but also in taking seriously workers’ experiences, perspectives, and aspirations. In the liberal tradition such thinkers include Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Marquis de Condorcet and Thomas Paine. In the socialist tradition they include the Ricardian socialists – (a group of thinkers loosely connected to David Ricardo), Karl Marx, and Eduard Bernstein, the unjustly neglected pioneer of social democracy. Mill and Bernstein belonged to both traditions.