Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 38.djvu/599

Rh because the capitalists of a given country will not be, as Marx prognosticated, a small number, but hundreds of thousands, probably millions, who would oppose a very powerful resistance to state occupation of a given industry, unless where such occupation was manifestly beneficial for the great majority.

The great multitude interested, the great number of owners of capital, whether in large or small portions, including the more intelligent artisans, would certainly make it difficult or impossible to expropriate them, would indefinitely delay the process, and only those industries could be taken over by the state the functions of which were discharged to the detriment of the community.

If indeed every province of production, distribution, and transport were occupied by syndicates and monopolies; if they abused the natural strength of the monopolist's position by raising prices to the utmost, and especially prices of the prime necessaries, while at the same time trying to reduce wages to the lowest point; if, in short, they were animated solely by egoism, and without conscience, or humanity, or public spirit, the public outside the industrial world, the large and intelligent middle class outside the industrial class, would probably side with the laboring class in pressing on the Government the suppression of the worst of them and the undertaking of their functions.

But, in the first place, the universal occupation of the industrial field by monopolies, and the extinction of competition, is very far off; in the second place, where any large combinations show too much corporate selfishness they can be pulled up by state supervision, and in certain cases great potential combinations can be nipped in the bud, their formation can be prevented by the state refusing permission to the companies to unite as "contrary to public policy" or to public interest; because a company is, in a certain sense, a creation of the state, as is likewise a union, and neither should exist, or receive permission of the state to come into being, if deemed likely to prove inimical to the general weal, so that the state could always check early or altogether the formation of possibly objectionable unions. Where, as in a case like that of railways, they were necessary, it would not be desirable to prevent their formation; they could always be checked if they abused their position, and conditions should always be attached to the concession of powers and privileges to them. It is, therefore, extremely unlikely that the industrial field will ever be occupied by a few colossal and irresponsible syndicates, or that the state will be driven to substitute itself for them, save possibly in a very few cases.

Lastly, the syndicates would have to be devoid not only of conscience, humanity, public spirit, but also, what we can less