ABSTRACT

This chapter considers the economic history of the modern industrial era in order to discern its meaning, to see what it has led up to, and what, consequently, are the problems with which the find ourselves confronted to-day. The Commissioner, inquiring into the industrial crisis, finds that it is mainly due to the immense development of machine industry under the joint-stock system; and he takes up various trades one after another to show how labor has been displaced by machinery. Instead, therefore, of attempting to undo the work which capitalists are unconsciously doing for the people, the real reformer will rather prepare the people, educated and organized as a true industrial democracy, to take up the threads when they fall from the weak hands of a useless possessing class. Multiply the employer; add enormously to the aggregate of his capital; remove the barrier of national frontiers from his operations; relieve him of the duty of personal supervision; the joint-stock capitalist.