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

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We began the economic battle in this country upon equal terms. Some got the advantage and became masters, the others becoming wage-workers. This advantage—that is, capital—brought constantly increasing advantage—profit, rent, interest; and those who had not the advantage stayed meanwhile just where they were—they got enough to live on, and no more. Numerous exceptions to this do not in the least disturb the main facts—that as a class the wage-workers stayed wage-workers, and the masters stayed masters. Neither does the fact that wages rose constantly in the least disturb the main fact, for the cost of living rose also; the wage-worker got his living then, and he gets it now. And meanwhile, according to the way of nature, and in spite of the outcry of moralists and old-fashioned statesmen, the strong went on growing stronger, and fighting among each other, the victors growing ten times stronger yet; until now we have come to a stage where, industrially speaking, we are a nation of eighty million pygmies and a dozen giants. Nor is the work quite done yet—it is going straight on, in spite of anti-trust decisions and the labour of the “muckrake man”—and within a very few more years the dozen giants will be but one giant.