CAPITALISM AND PROGRESSIVE STRUGGLE 167 



progress and maintenance of economic civilisation Book n 

 depend, as even socialists are now beginning to 

 perceive, on the industrial actions of average men 

 being subjected to the control of exceptional men, 

 and since this control can be secured by two methods 

 only that of the wage-payer and that of the slave- 

 owner it is evident that all progress and civilisation 

 implies the existence of either one system or the 

 other, and that socialists accordingly, in proportion 

 as they reject the wage-system, are obliged to 

 replace it by what is essentially the system of 

 slavery. 



We have thus far, however, dealt with but one 

 half of our subject. We have considered merely the Next let us 



1 i i j consider the 



means by which any one great man exercises indus- mea ns by 

 trial control over the actions of a number of ordinary J^J*^^ 

 men. We have still to consider the means by which f industry 



' compete 



the most efficient of the great men get this control against one 

 into their own hands, and take it out of the hands of 

 the less efficient. 



Under the regime of private capitalism this process under capital- 



. . i TI i* cc ' c i ' sm they do 



is simple. 1 he fitness or efficiency of each great so> owing to 

 man is according to the acceptability to the public of ^^^ 

 the goods or services which he offers them. If the cannotdirect 



c> industry so as 



public are not pleased with these goods and services, to P lease * 



public, loses 



they do not buy or demand them; and the capital his capital, and 

 of the man by whom they are offered, not being means O f 6 

 renewed by any money received, melts in his hands, dl 

 and with it his control over other men's labour. 

 Meanwhile, by a converse process, the great men 

 who offer goods and services which the public desire 



