“I cannot see that the getting of food, or whatever else the economic activities may be defined to be, is any more the logical basis of existence than the ideal activities. It is true that there could be no ideas and institutions without a food supply; but no more could we get food if we did not have ideas and institutions. All work together, and each of the principal functions is essential to every other.”
“History is not like a tangled skein which you may straighten out by getting hold of the right end and following it with sufficient persistence. It has no straightness, no merely lineal continuity, in its nature. It is a living thing, to be known by sharing its life, very much as you know a person. In the organic world—that is to say in real life—each function is a centre from which causes radiate and to which they converge; all is alike cause and effect; there is no logical primacy, no independent variable, no place where the thread begins. As in the fable of the belly and the members, each is dependent upon all the others. You must see the whole or you do not truly see anything.” (Publications of the American Economic Association, Third Series, vol. v, 426 ff.)
CHAPTER XXIII
ON THE ASCENDENCY OF A CAPITALIST CLASS
The Capitalist Class—Its Lack of Caste Sentiment—In What Sense “the Fittest”—Moral Traits—How Far Based on Service—Autocratic and Democratic Principles in the Control of Industry—Reasons for Expecting an Increase of the Democratic Principle—Social Power in General—Organizing Capacity—Nature and Sources of Capitalist Power—Power Over the Press and Over Public Sentiment—Upper-class Atmosphere.
Since in our age commerce and industry absorb most of the practical energy of the people, the men that are foremost in these activities have a certain ascendency, similar to that of warriors in a military age.
Although this sort of men is not sharply marked off, it is well enough indicated by the term capitalist or capitalist-manager class; the large owner of capital being usually more or less of a manager also, while the large salaries and other gains of successful managers soon make them capitalists.
It is not quite accurate to speak of the group in question as the rich, because, at a given time, a large part of its most vigorous membership is as yet without wealth—though in a way to get it—and, on the other hand, many of the actual possessors of wealth are personally idle or ineffective. The essential thing is a social tendency or system of ideas generated in the accumulation of wealth and having for its nucleus the more active and successful leaders of commerce and industry.
That these are a very small class in proportion to their power is apparent, but not, perhaps, in itself, so fatal a defect in the system that permits it as many imagine. In so far as concentration of control means that wealth is in the hands of those who understand how to use it for the common good, and do in fact so use it, much may be said in its favor. We are all eager to entrust our property to those who will make it profitable to us; and society, under any system that could be devised, must probably do the same. But we may well ask whether there is not some more adequate means than we now have of getting this trust faithfully executed.
For better or for worse, concentration is probably inevitable in any society that has a vast, mobile wealth subject to competition; and the actual inequality is perhaps not much greater than that of political power, which is supposed to be equally distributed by general suffrage. The truth is that equality of power or influence, in any sphere of life, is inconsistent with the free working of human forces, which is ever creating differences, some of which are useful to society and some harmful. A true freedom, a reasonable equality, aims to conserve the former and abolish or limit the latter.
The sentiment of the class is not aristocratic in the ordinary sense. Although its members endeavor to secure their possessions to their children, there is little of the spirit of hereditary caste, which, indeed, is uncongenial to commerce. Freedom of opportunity is the ideal in this as in other parts of American society, and educational or other opportunities designed to maintain or increase it are sincerely approved and supported. There is, in fact, an almost inevitable dualism which makes it natural that a man should strive to aggrandize himself, his family and his class even though he truly wishes for greater equality of privilege. He floats on two currents, and as a man and a brother may be glad of restraints upon his own class which are in the interest of justice.