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

3 страница из 28

The student will furthermore perceive that this evolutionary process had two manifestations, two waves, so to speak; the first political, and the second industrial; the first determined by man’s struggle to protect his life, and the second by his struggle to amass wealth. The culmination of the first occurred successively in the English revolutions, the American and French revolutions, and the other various efforts after political freedom. After each of these achievements the historian notices a period of bitterness and disillusionment, a sense of failure, it being discovered that the expected did not occur, that Liberty, Equality and Fraternity did not become the rule of men’s conduct. After that, however, succeeds a period of enlightenment, it having been realised that the work has only been half done, that man has been made only half free. The political sovereignty has been taken out of the possession of private individuals and made the property of the whole community, to be shared in by all upon equal terms; but the industrial sovereignty still remains the property of a few. A man can no longer be put in jail or taxed by a king, but he can be starved and exploited by a master; his body is now his own, but his labour is another’s—and there is very little difference between the two. So immediately there begins a new movement, the end of which is a new revolution, and the establishment of THE INDUSTRIAL REPUBLIC.