578 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cerned ; it will increase further in the interests of the health, the 

 happiness, and the morals of the working class; so in like man- 

 ner the tendency to assume industrial functions on the part of 

 the central or the local government will increase. Nevertheless, 

 this tendency will not increase fast nor go far, unless a second 

 tendency, which we have now particularly to consider, should de- 

 velop and show itself socially mischievous. 



The second tendency is that toward the increased massing to- 

 gether or concentration of capital which has been going on all 

 through this century, at first as a consequence of the industrial 

 revolution and the needs of the large scale of production, then 

 by the undertaking of ever larger enterprises requiring vast sums 

 of capital, as in the making and working of railways a tendency 

 which first showed itself in the instance of the great individual 

 capitalist, then in the company or union of capitalists, and lastly, 

 within the past few years, in the syndicate or union of companies. 

 This second tendency does exist ; it is likewise an increasing tend- 

 ency, and, under certain circumstances of abuse into which it 

 would be tempted to fall, it might lead to socialism, not because 

 of its affinities, since it is the very opposite of socialism, but by 

 way of repulsion ; it might lead to excessive government regula- 

 tion, or to the superseding of the syndicates by government man- 

 agement in the interest of the public. 



But, before considering the circumstances which might lead 

 to such state socialism, it is necessary to clear away a mistake as 

 to the concentration of capital, to point out a mistaken tendency, 

 which, if it really did exist, would probably lead to socialism by 

 a far shorter road the mistake that the increasing concentration 

 of capital, which is an undoubted fact, is an increasing concen- 

 tration or accumulation in ever fewer individual hands ; a mis- 

 take made conspicuously by Karl Marx, which was indorsed by 

 Cairnes and Fawcett, and which lies at the bottom of all their 

 desires to change the present industrial organization by substi- 

 tuting for it universal collectivism, as Marx would wish, or co- 

 operative production, as the other two prefer. 



According to Karl Marx, socialism will come when the process 

 of evolution has resulted in a few colossal capitalists face to face 

 with millions of exploited and expropriated proletarians, includ- 

 ing many smaller capitalists who have been undersold and driven 

 into the ranks of the proletariate. " When the constantly dimin- 

 ishing number of the magnates of capital has resulted in a few 

 gigantic ones with a growing mass of misery, oppression, slavery, 

 degradation, and exploitation " ; and when, in addition, " the work- 

 ing class, increased in numbers, organized, disciplined, and united 

 by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production it- 

 self, is animated with a spirit of revolt," then, he declares, " the 



