7o6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The economic utility of the various modes of compounding capital ex- 

 emplified in our modern industrial life is clearly recognized by Mr. Spen- 

 cer. By the use of these methods stagnant capital has almost disappeared. 

 Liberty of combination is asserted, subject to due responsibility of the indi- 

 vidual shareholder. No sympathy is expressed with the prevalent indis- 

 criminate denunciation of corporations and trusts. Possibly Mr. Spencer 

 does not fully realize the extent to which such combinations may become a 

 menace to the liberty of the small tradesman, the purity of legislation, and 

 the just requirements of public service. He doubtless thinks that such 

 evils would be self-corrective, as in the case of the various " bubble enter- 

 prises " which have been fostered under capitalistic auspices. He sees the 

 utility of such combinations in promoting serviceable industrial enterprises, 

 and affirms their superiority to state action in the advancement of the 

 common weal. 



The greatest interest of the reader will, probably center in the closing 

 chapters on co-operation, socialism, and the probable trend of industrial 

 evolution in the near future. Mr. Spencer's general attitude toward these 

 questions is well known; but he has never stated his convictions more 

 lucidly nor with equal calmness and poise of judgment. Nor has he be- 

 fore presented so clearly the ripe fruit of his own mature reflection as to 

 the ideal relation of the laborer to the product of his industry. 



"Social life in its entirety is carried on by co-operation," Mr. Spencer 

 declares. The earliest modes of conscious industrial co-operation are 

 closely allied to similar united action for militant purposes. All modes of 

 industrial alliance which are enforced by the state must partake strongly 

 of the militant spirit, inhibit individual freedom, and restrain true progress 

 along normal lines of social evolution. 



The word "co-operation" is now commonly used in a restricted sense to 

 distinguish a special form of social and industrial life. In those methods 

 of adjusting the interests of capital and labor generally known fs "profit- 

 sharing," Mr. Spencer sees some advantages joined with serious defects. 

 He regards them as unnecessarily complicated, difficult of comprehension 

 by employees, and therefore not likely to prove ultimately satisfactory to 

 them. They are based on the system of wage-labor, and this is defective 

 in that it does not proportion the reward of services to their quality and 

 amount. "So long as the worker remains a wage-earner the marks of 

 status do not wholly disappear. For so many hours daily he makes over 

 his faculties to a master. . . . He is temporarily in the position of a slave, 

 and his overlooker stands in the position of a slave-driver." An ideal sys- 

 tem will assure rewards proportionate to activities and a direct interest of 

 the worker in the enterprise which he is developing. Socialism, whether- 

 voluntary or compulsory, violates the first of these conditions, tends to un- 

 dermine family life, and is essentially militant in its social ideal. "People 

 who, in their corporative capacity, abolish the natural relation between 

 merits and benefits, will presently be abolished themselves." 



All co-operative enterprises involving wage-service imply the defects in- 

 herent in the wage system, and can only pai'tially remedy its inequities. A 

 self-governing body of workers paid according to the piece-work system, 

 and sharing profits or losses in a like ratio, constitutes the ideal of future 

 industrial evolution. The practicability of such a system depends wholly 

 on character: " The best industrial institutions are possible only with the 



