The Kinetic Theory of Economic Crises 3 1 



methods, in fine to an earlier, more materialistic environment. 

 This part movement may become a general movement of retro- 

 gression, if the general run of trust magnates prove deficient in 

 moral quality. On the lower plane there is less division of labor, 

 less specialization, less scope for talents of the highest order, less 

 guaranty that employment be found for all. 



Again, the obstinacy of employers' syndicates, such as the 

 anthracite railroads on the one hand, and of laborers who demand 

 an influence in corporate management not warranted by their 

 psychic level on the other, may result in such inconvenience to 

 the general public, in such a congestion and lack of circulation 

 and supply in the general voluntary industrial organization, that 

 the latter may seek, through the intervention of government, to 

 make common cause and thus consciously and by compulsion to 

 accomplish what was previously attained unconsciously, freely, 

 and organically. If such intervention last a long time, it 

 must surely result in a less skill, a less energy, a mechanical 

 routine of red tape, which will arrest the development of the 

 industry, will cause it to cease to impart stimuli to other indus- 

 tries or to receive stimuli from them, and thus to prevent accom- 

 modation to a wider market, if not actually narrow the existing 

 one. If the intervention last but a short time, it may be the best 

 available way for society to defend itself from the immorality, 

 the unsociability, and the shortsightedness of certain classes and 

 industries. Probably such intervention is typical of the most 

 useful function of government. This illustration is in accord 

 with that theory which predicts the gradual shriveling of gov- 

 ernmental powers, or, in other words, that the higher conjunc- 

 tures will make less and less permanent place for them. 



Thus we perceive that the successive conjunctures condition 

 the functions that are active in them. The conjuncture or envi- 

 ronment is, in fact, the structure within which the functions act. 

 If it is sought to exercise a given function, or business, it must 

 seek out the proper conjuncture, or else fail of its peculiar sanc- 

 tion. In this quest, it may carry the whole industrial movement 

 along with it, either in advance or regress. That in the long run 

 the movement is psychic and hence an advance is the assumption 



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