The industrial republic: a study of the America of ten years hence

by Upton Sinclair

In this discussion of the process of wealth-concentration, I have so far purposely omitted all mention of the most important aspect of the phenomenon—the seizing by the “constantly increasing mass of capital” of the powers of the State, and their use for purpose of intensifying exploitation. I have avoided that feature, partly because it is conspicuous enough to deserve a chapter to itself, but mainly in order to make clear my view-point, that the phenomenon, while important, is secondary—an effect rather than a cause.

This is, of course, contrary to the view usually taken. In most discussions of the problems of the time, it is taken for granted that “government by special interests” is the source of all the evil. But while recognising how enormously the process of wealth concentration has been accelerated by the political alliance, it is my thesis that exactly the same conditions would have developed had economic forces been left to work out their own results. I maintain that economic competition is a self-destroying stage in social development; and that to regard it as permanent is simply not to realise what it is. For competition is a struggle, and the purpose of every struggle is a victory; to conceive of a struggle without the intention to end the struggle, is simply impossible in the nature of things. In the industrial combat the end is the victory of a class, and the reduction of all other classes to servitude—with the ultimate extinction of all individuals not needed by the victors.

Again, it is generally the custom to regard this phenomenon of class-government with indignation and astonishment, as if it were something abnormal and monstrous; but from the point of view of this discussion, it is a perfectly natural and inevitable incident of the intensification of competition. You are to picture Capital, seeking profits; like a wild beast in a cage, pacing about, watching for an opening, here and there; like water, caught behind a dam, creeping up, crowding forward, feeling for a weak spot. And the one thing to be determined is: Is there any way in which profits can be made through the powers of government? If so, it is quite certain that there will be an attempt made by capital to get possession of those powers.

You can see the thing in its germ in any primitive community; I once amused myself by studying it in a little village in Canada, where the trusts had never been heard of. The storekeeper was a rich man, and he had a “pull” with the squire and with the constable and with the game-warden; he did little favours for them, and they for him—so that a poor “Frenchman” who was suspected of stealing a pair of socks found himself in jail before he knew why. And then there was a big “lumber man” in the township; he owned all the jobs, and he traded with the storekeeper, and the storekeeper in return ran the political machine. That was the whole story of the politics of the district—except that there were several fellows of independent temperament, who grumbled, and who constituted the germ of the Socialist movement.

Political corruption first became epidemic in our country in 1861, when the government had to go into business upon an enormous scale. There were contractors—and competition. And then, of course, there was the tariff, a shrewd scheme to compel the people to pay high prices without knowing it. Later on someone discovered the brilliant idea of the franchise, the selling for a nominal sum of the right to tax the public without limit. And so capital went into politics.

At first it did a purely retail business, buying up the legislators as it needed them; but soon the thing became systematised, and Capital got wholesale prices—it financed the machines, and chose its own candidates. The process culminated at the beginning of the present decade, when “big business” was in practically undisputed possession of both the majority parties, of Congress and the Presidency, and of the governments in every town, city and state in America.

You see, it was as if our society was in unstable equilibrium. We had a political democracy, and we were developing an industrial aristocracy; and it was impossible for them to exist side by side. Innocent people had taken it for granted that they could; but it is no more possible for a democracy to be aristocratic in any of its aspects and remain a democracy, than it is for a virtuous man to be vicious in one particular, and remain a virtuous man. Democracy is not a code of laws, nor is it a system of government—it is an attitude of soul. It has as its basis a perception of the spiritual nature of man, from which follows the corollary that all men either are equal, or must become so. And so between aristocracy and democracy, wherever and under whatever aspects they appear, there is, and forever must be, eternal and deadly war. Here is the testimony and the warning of the greatest of American democrats, Abraham Lincoln, who if he could rise from his grave to speak to us in these times of our country’s trial could speak no more pertinent words than these. He had declared that the Slavery question was one between right and wrong. “Right and wrong,” he said—“that is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles—right and wrong—throughout the world. They are the principles which have stood face to face from the beginning of time and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity, and the other is the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says: ‘You work and toil and earn bread, and I’ll eat it.’ No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation, and live by the fruit of their labour, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.”

It is worth while pointing out the utter hopelessness of the struggle. On the one hand was the capitalist, with his millions, alert, aggressive and resourceful; he had an army of experts to help him—shrewd attorneys, skilful lobbyists, newspapers and publicity bureaus, political henchmen trained all their lifetime to the trade; he was cold and unscrupulous—as a rule he was not a man at all, but a corporation, a thing without a soul, a monster “clamouring for dividends.” He had a thousand devices, a thousand pretences, a thousand disguises. And opposed to him was the Public—unorganised, uninformed, and sound asleep!

Recently, when Mr. H. G. Wells was in this country, I had a long talk with him, and he asked me how I accounted for the saturnalia of corruption in our political life; he said that our people did not seem to him degraded or brutal, and he could not understand why things were so much worse here than in England. I said that in England the economic process had been modified by the existence of an hereditary aristocracy, holding over from old times and having high traditions of public service. By nature this aristocracy sympathised with capital, and to a certain extent fraternised with it; but it would not abdicate to it, and occasionally, to preserve its own power, it made concessions to the public, and so served as a check upon the forces of commercialism. On the other hand the American people had only themselves to rely upon and until they had been goaded into revolt, there was no limit whatever to the power of greed.

I suppose it is unnecessary to offer any proofs of the existence of “government by special interests.” If there is anyone who has been out of the country for the past three years and has not read any of the magazines, it will be sufficient to refer him to the two books of Mr. Lincoln Steffens—“The Shame of the Cities” and “The Struggle for Self Government.”