ABSTRACT
The United States of America is capitalism's land of promise. In no other country and among no other people was capitalism favoured with circumstances that permitted it to develop to the most advanced state. Making a living from anything other than capitalism is as good as unknown in the United States, and an economic rationalism of a purity unknown in any European country serves the desire for gain. Capitalism presses forward remorselessly, even when its path is strewn with corpses. From 1880 to 1900 the proportion of the gainfully employed population in agricultural pursuits in the United States fell from 44.3 to 35.7 per cent and the proportion of persons engaged in trade and transportation rose from 10.8 to 16.4 per cent. First, the proportion of the population of the United States living in large cities of over 100,000 inhabitants is already greater today than anywhere else in the world, with the exception of England.
