ABSTRACT
The interests of capitalists best determine the extent of capital; and any interference of the law is therefore unnecessary. Whether as grasping tyrant or courageous benefactor, the figure of the modern business man is already swathed in mythical shrouds, through which even the learned often fail to penetrate. The automatic manner in which under the new condition of affairs the industrial system worked without any superior control seemed to the economists to be so remarkable as only to find explanation on the hypothesis of a “hidden hand”. In consequence the whole tendency of their doctrine was to demonstrate that prevailing evils were not due to the existence of the capitalist undertaker or to his extortions, but to the harsh exactions of nature, who governed the relations between profit, rent and wages by inexorable law.
