A little help with translating G K. Chesterton

Hello guys, my name's Raul M. Lima, I'm a Brazilian currently engaged in the somehow imprudent task of translating G. K. Chesterton's Outline of Sanity. It's being great to do so, and I apologize, first of all, for posting this right here, I coudn't find any topic that was more appropriate. So, let's get down to business: Chesterton is making a comparison between the Capitalism system and Robinson Crusoé's relationship with Friday, his servant on the book. I've managed to translate all the paragraph but there is one specific phrase that's giving some pain to resolve. I'll post the entire paragraph and then separate with an "--" the paragraph. Here it goes:

But this collapse of industrial individualism, which is not
only a collapse but a contradiction (since it has to contradict
all its own commonest maxims), is not only an accident
of our condition, though it is most marked in our country.
Anybody who can think in theories, those highly practical things,
will see that sooner or later this paralysis in the system is inevitable.
Capitalism is a contradiction; it is even a contradiction in terms.
It takes a long time to box the compass, and a still longer time
to see that it has done so; but the wheel has come full circle now.
Capitalism is contradictory as soon as it is complete; because it
is dealing with the mass of men in two opposite ways at once.
When most men are wage-earners, it is more and more
difficult for most men to be customers. For, the capitalist
is always trying to cut down what his servant demands,
and in doing so is cutting down what his customer can spend.
As soon as his business is in any difficulties, as at present in
the coal business, he tries to reduce what he has to spend on wages, and in doing so reduces what others have to spend on coal.
He is wanting the same man to be rich and poor at the same time.
This contradiction in capitalism does not appear in the earlier stages, because there are still populations not reduced to the common proletarian condition. But as soon as the wealthy as a whole are employing the wage-earners as a whole, this contradiction stares them in the face like an ironic doom and judgment. Employer and employee are simplified and solidified to the relation of Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday. Robinson Crusoe may say he has two problems: the supply of cheap labour and the prospect of trade with the natives.
But as he is dealing in these two different ways with the same man,
he will get into a muddle. Robinson Crusoe may possibly force
Friday to work for nothing but his bare keep, the white man
possessing all the weapons. As in the Geddes parallel, he may
economize with an Axe. But he cannot cut down Friday's salary
to nothing and then expect Friday to give him gold and silver
and orient pearls in return for rum and rifles. Now in proportion
as capitalism covers the whole earth, links up large populations,
and is ruled by centralized systems, the nearer and nearer approaches this resemblance to the lonely figures on the remote island. -- If the trade with the natives is really going down, so as to necessitate the wages of the natives also going down, -- we can only say that the case is rather more tragic if the excuse is true than if it is false.
We can only say that Crusoe is now indeed alone, and that Friday
is unquestionably unlucky.