But, assuming that
competition could still be enforced by law, the only effect would be to
make the mass of capital more homogeneous by eliminating still further
such of the weaker capitalists as have survived. Ultimately, unless
indeed society is to dissolve and capital migrate elsewhere, all the
present phenomena would be intensified. Nor would free trade, probably,
have more than a very transitory effect. In no department of trade is
competition freer than in the Atlantic passenger service, and yet in no
trade is there a stricter monopoly price.
The same acceleration of the social movement which has caused this
centralization of capital has caused the centralization of another form
of human energy, which is its negative: labor unions organize labor as a
monopoly. Labor protests against the irresponsible sovereignty of
capital, as men have always protested against irresponsible sovereignty,
declaring that the capitalistic social system, as it now exists, is a
form of slavery. Very logically, therefore, the abler and bolder labor
agitators proclaim that labor levies actual war against society, and
that in that war there can be no truce until irresponsible capital has
capitulated.
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