Page:Olive Malmberg Johnson - Woman and the Socialist Movement (1908).djvu/41

 Rh efforts as purchasers on the field of distribution after the capitalist is through skinning the worker in the workshop, their efforts have been valueless and the interest has ever been small. There are few women that go out to trade with the workers' small purse who do not have far greater interests in the bargain counter than in the union label.

Capitalist society is working its own downfall. The concentration of wealth points to the fact that in the near future all industry in this country will be controlled by a very few men. It has been the historic mission of capitalism to improve and concentrate the means of production. The struggle of the individual capitalist on the industrial field has forced on the improvement of the machine as well as concentration itself. But this has created that which is bound to work the ultimate downfall of capitalism itself—namely, the Industrial Working Class. When the means of production grew too large for the owner himself to operate, he hired help. When his employees became numerous his profits grew large and so he could ultimately himself withdraw from the labor process and give his time either to financial schemes or pure enjoyment. All the work fell to wage labor, which really means that all the machines fell into the hands of wage workers. Not only do wage workers perform the actual process of physical labor, but every position in an industry, from manager and bookkeeper to the errand boy, is filled by wage workers. Then the scattered workshop has disappeared. The industry has arisen. Thousands of workers are collected under one roof, many thousands into one community. The division of labor has made one person dependent upon another, one labor process upon another, not only in one industry, but industry is interdependent upon industry. The shoe. worker for an example cannot make shoes without the machine which requires a number of industries, from the miner to the metal polisher, nor without raw material which requires a number more, nor without light, fuel and power