Page:Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919).djvu/201

Rh The momentum of the Going Concern is very difficult to change in a democracy. The one hope of the future is that, as a result of the lesson of this War, even democracy may learn to take longer views In an economically lop-sided community the majority is on the over-developed side, and it is the majority which chooses the rulers in a democracy. The vested interests as a consequence tend to vest ever deeper, both the interest of labour in earning and buying in particular ways, and of capital in making profit in those same ways; on the average there is nothing to choose between labour and capital in these regards; they both take short views.

But there is the same difficulty of changing the Going Concern in an autocracy, although that difficulty is felt in a different way. The majority in a democracy will not change its economic routine, but autocracy often does not dare to do so. Germany under the Kaiserdom aimed at a World Empire, and to achieve it resorted to appropriate economic expedients for building up her man-power; presently she dared not change her only too successful policy even when it was forcing her to war, for the alternative was revolution. Like Frankenstein she had constructed an unmanageable monster.