How we cite our quotes: (Chapter. Paragraph)
Quote #4
"History is dominated and determined by the tool and the production—by the force of economic conditions. Capitalism has made socialism, and the laws made by the capitalist for the protection of property are responsible for anarchism." (3.1)
Riffing on straight Marxism, Michaelis argues that people's ideas and beliefs don't really have any impact on how the world is run. What matters is who's got the money and who doesn't. You can spend your whole life trying to change the way people think; but you won't make any real impact until you change the amount of cash in their wallets. The fact that this speech is coming from Michaelis, though, almost dooms these ideas from the get-go. Michaelis is someone who believes what he says, but lacks any practical way of bringing his ideas to the real world.
Quote #5
[Michaelis] optimism had begun to flow from his lips. He saw Capitalism doomed in its cradle, born with the poison of the principle of competition in its system. The great capitalists devouring the little capitalists, concentrating the power and the tools of production in great masses, perfecting industrial processes, and in the madness of self-aggrandizement only preparing, organizing, enriching, making ready the lawful inheritance of the suffering proletariat. (3.32)
According to Michaelis, capitalism is doomed to destroy itself because it can never make a peaceful society. The reason it can't create peace is because the whole system is based on the idea of competition, which means that you cant get things for yourself without taking them away from others. It's like a game of poker. There'll always be losers, which means there'll always be really angry people. At the end of the day, though, Conrad doesn't seem to think that anarchism or Marxism are worthwhile alternatives.
Quote #6
Married young and splendidly at some remote epoch of the past, she had had for a time a close view of great affairs, and even of some great men. She herself was a great lady. Old now in the number of her years, she had that sort of exceptional temperament which defines time with scornful disregard, as if it were a rather vulgar convention submitted to by the mass of inferior mankind. (6.1)
Here, you really see Conrad spoofing the upper classes of English society, especially through the great lady who's decided to take care of Michaelis. Lines like these really tend to make this woman into a caricature of wealthy privilege, especially when you consider that she inherited all of her wealth from her dead husband. She even thinks that worrying about time is gross, since time is a concern for people who need to worry about working. That said, Conrad's narrator also says some pretty nice things about this woman, because the guy just cant bear to let us get settled in our opinions. That'd be too easy.