Science and Industry 



large numbers of substantially independent pro- 

 ducers, and restoring free competition in indus- 

 tries where the economy of large-scale production 

 with a control of the best sources of power had led 

 to the establishment of monopolies. 



If the waste of subdividing and conveying in- 

 dustrial power can be got down to a low level, and 

 this economy is administered for the public good, 

 instead of furnishing another and a more endur- 

 ing basis of private monopoly, it may do a larger 

 work for industrial democracy than any that has 

 yet been done. Not only would it contribute 

 directly towards equality of economic opportunity, 

 by diminishing or even annulling the advantage 

 possessed by the big capitalist over the small 

 capitalist, but it would, by spreading industry and 

 population more evenly over large areas of land, 

 tend to equalise land values and to reduce the 

 a gg re g at e of rent. If such distribution of manu- 

 facturing power were accompanied by a similarly 

 effective small-scale distribution of transport power, 

 the tendency to break up congested cities and to 

 disperse the industrial population would be still 

 more powerfully operative. 



But quite apart from these speculations regard- 

 ing the new developments of electric science, we 

 are entitled to conclude that capitalism, as the em- 

 bodiment of scientific forces, is not the all-absorbing 

 power it sometimes appears. The statistics of oc- 

 cupations are most enlightening in their testimony 

 to the limits of mechanically-ordered industry. A 

 survey of the best evidence in all those countries 



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