By way of contrast, industrialists, businessmen, and their servitors were held to be incapable of developing this morality due to the nature of their day-to-day economic and political activity.[3] The act of labor itself was believed to be socially ennobling, whereas the act of economic exploitation backed by political force was held to be inherently corrupting.[4] Therefore, Proudhon emphatically declared for a strict separatism between the working class and all others.[3]