Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/65

 social property. In fact, this movement really means the transformation of all the money of the middle and lower classes, which is not used by them for immediate consumption, into money capital and as such placing it at the disposal of the great financiers for the buying out of industrial managers and thereby assisting in the concentration of industry in the hands of a few financiers. Without the system of stocks the great financiers would only control those businesses which they have bought with their own money. Thanks to stocks, they can make countless industries dependent upon them and thereby accelerate the conquest of those which they have not the necessary money to purchase. The whole fabulous power of Pierpont Morgan & Co., that within the last few years has united in one hand countless railroads, mines, and a majority of the iron works, and now has also monopolized the greatest Transatlantic steam-ship line—this sudden acquisition of dominion over the industry and commerce of the greatest of civilized worlds would have been impossible without stock companies.

According to the London Economist, five men, John D. Rockefeller, C. H. Harriman, Pierpont Morgan, W. M. Vanderbilt and G. D. Gould together possess seven hundred and fifty million dollars; while the total capital of the banks, railroads and the industrial companies of the United States is seventeen thousand five hundred million dollars. Thanks