COOPERATION, COERCION, COMPETITION. 533 



Europe, where many industries are already municipalized or national- 

 ized, and in our middle western cities it looks as though the trolley 

 companies would pay the same penalty for charging what the people 

 consider high fares. 



However we look at it, therefore, the existing system of coercion 

 as applied by the present monopolizers of the social surplus sources 

 appears to be confronted by opposing forces. When pushed too far 

 coercion is met by cooperation and diminishing returns set in. Already 

 cooperation is acting as a powerful check upon such coercion as exists, 

 and as we advance a little further I expect to see the coercive system 

 broken do^vn bit by bit, first by the cooperation of capitalists and 

 laborers in profit-sharing undertakings, and next, where necessary, by 

 the socialization of such industries as prove recalcitrant under the new 

 order of things. Or to put the thought theoretically, I think we may 

 expect the present monopolization of the surplus sources to be extended 

 gradually to admit laborers as well as capitalists, and finally, perhaps, 

 some monopolies to be still further extended so as to admit consumers 

 as well as producers. 



