Indeed, this type of ability was never in such demand as it now is, for the conduct of the vast and diverse social structures rising about us—industrial enterprises, political parties, labor unions, newspapers, universities and philanthropies.
It has its high money value partly because of its rarity and partly because there is a regular market for it; the need being so urgent and obvious as to create a steady and intelligent demand. In this latter respect it contrasts with services, like moral leadership, which people need but will seldom pay for. A third reason is that its possessors are almost always clever enough to know their own value and secure its recognition.
In discussing the power of the capitalist class there is no question of the finer and higher forms of power. We shall rarely find among the rich any pregnant spiritual leadership, theirs being a pedestrian kind of authority which has a great deal to do with the every-day comfort of their contemporaries but does not attempt to sway the profounder destinies of the race. Nor does the world often accord them enduring fame: lacking spiritual significance their names are writ in water. Even in industry the creative thought, the inventions which are the germs of a new era, seldom come from money-winners, since they require a different kind of insight.
The capitalist represents power over those social values that are tangible and obvious enough to have a definite standing in the market. His money and prestige will command food, houses, clothes, tools and all conventional and standard sorts of personal service, from lawn-mowing to the administration of a railroad, not genius or love or anything of that nature. That wealth means social power of this coarser sort is apparent in a general way, and yet merits a somewhat closer examination.
We have, first, its immediate power over goods and services: the master of riches goes attended by an invisible army of potential servitors, ready to do for him anything that the law allows, and often more. He is in this way, as in so many others, the successor of the nobleman of mediæval and early modern history, who went about with a band of visible retainers eager to work his will upon all opposers. He is the ruler of a social system wherever he may be.
The political power of wealth is due only in part to direct corruption, vast as that is, but is even more an indirect and perfectly legal pressure in the shape of inducements which its adroit use can always bring to bear—trade to the business man, practice to the lawyer and employment to the hand-worker: every one when he thinks of his income wishes to conciliate the rich. Influence of this sort makes almost every rich man a political power, even without his especially wishing to be. But when wealth is united to a shrewd and unscrupulous political ambition, when it sets out to control legislation or the administration of the laws, it becomes truly perilous. We cannot fail to see that a large part of our high offices are held by men who have no marked qualification but wealth, and would be insignificant without it; also that our legislation—municipal, state and national—and most of our administrative machinery, feel constantly the grasp of pecuniary power. Probably it is not too much to say that except when public opinion is unusually aroused wealth can generally have its way in our politics if it makes an effort to do so.
As to the influence of the rich over the professional classes—lawyers, doctors, clergymen, teachers, civil and mechanical engineers and the like—we may say in general that it is potent but somewhat indirect, implying not conscious subservience but a moral ascendency through habit and suggestion. The abler men of this sort are generally educated and self-respecting, have a good deal of professional spirit and are not wholly dependent upon any one employer. At the same time, they get their living largely through the rich, from whom the most lucrative employment comes, and who have many indirect ways of making and marring careers. The ablest men in the legal profession are in close relations with the rich and commonly become capitalists themselves; physicians are more independent, because their art is not directly concerned with property, yet look to wealthy patients for their most profitable practice; clergymen are under pressure to satisfy wealthy parishioners, and teachers must win the good will of the opulent citizens who control educational boards.
Now there is nothing in social psychology surer than that if there is a man by whose good will we desire to profit, we are likely to adapt our way of thinking to his. Impelled to imagine frequently his state of mind, and to desire that it should be favorable to our aims, we are unconsciously swayed by his thought, the more so if he treats us with a courtesy which does not alarm our self-respect. It is in this way that wealth imposes upon intellect. Who can deny it?
Newspapers are generally owned by men of wealth, which has no doubt an important influence upon the sentiments expressed in them; but a weightier consideration is the fact that they depend for profit chiefly upon advertisements, the most lucrative of which come from rich merchants who naturally resent doctrines that threaten their interest. Of course the papers must reach the people, in order to have a value for advertising or any other purpose, and this requires adaptation to public opinion; but the public of what are known as the better class of papers are chiefly the comparatively well-to-do. And even that portion of the press which aims to please the hand-working class is usually more willing to carry on a loud but vague agitation, not intended to accomplish anything but increase circulation, than to push real and definite reform.
All phases of opinion, including the most earnest and honest inquiry into social questions, finds some voice in print, but—leaving aside times when public opinion is greatly aroused—those phases that are backed by wealthy interests have a great advantage in the urgency, persistence and cleverness with which they are presented. At least, this has been the case in the past. It is a general feeling of thoughtful men among the hand-working class that it is hard to get a really fair statement of their view of industrial questions from that portion of the newspaper and magazine press that is read by well-to-do people. The reason seems to be mainly that the writers live unconsciously in an atmosphere of upper-class ideas from which they do not free themselves by thorough inquiry. Besides this, there is a sense of what their readers expect, and also, perhaps, a vague feeling that the sentiments of the hand-working class may threaten public order.