Читать книгу The industrial republic: a study of the America of ten years hence онлайн

17 страница из 28

At the present day we have a society, industrial instead of agricultural; and the struggle which we are witnessing is that between capital and labour. It is a struggle, not for land, but for profits; and if we are to show that it is, like the Civil War, “an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces,” we must show in this case also that the thing struggled for is limited in quantity, and ultimately insufficient to satisfy the needs of both the contending parties.

That our industrial system is based upon profits, and that a failure of profits would lead to its collapse, will be admitted by anyone. But how could profits ever fail? the reader asks. Will not the soil always produce? And does not every man who comes into the world bring a pair of hands with him, to produce things and earn his living? And so, can there not always be profitable exchange? There could, I answer, provided that the various pairs of hands were to remain upon equal terms. But suppose that one pair were to get some advantage over the other pairs, and use that advantage to get constantly increasing advantage; might there not then come a time when the other pairs, having less and less, were finally unable to furnish as much profits as were necessary?