The increasing restrictions on free use of capital, the monopoly of
certain branches of industry by the State and the municipality, the
growing tendency to take money from the rich by taxation, can be
explained, reconciled, and justified on no other principle than the
recognition that a certain share of the value of these forms of wealth
is due to the community which has assisted and co-operated with the
individual owner in its creation. Whether the socialistic legislation
which, stronger than all traditions of party politics, is constantly
imposing new limitations upon the private use of capital, is desirable
or not, is not the question with which we are concerned. It is the fact
that is important. Society is constantly engaged in endeavouring,
feebly, slowly, and blindly, to relieve the stress of poverty, and the
industrial weakness of low-skilled labour, by laying hands upon certain
functions and certain portions of wealth formerly left to private
individuals, and claiming them as social functions and social wealth to
be administered for the social welfare. This is the past and present
contribution of "socialistic legislation" towards a solution of the
problem of poverty, and it seems not unlikely that the claims of society
upon these forms of social property will be larger and more
systematically enforced in the future.
Chapter XI.
The Industrial Outlook of Low-Skilled Labour.
Sec. 1. The Concentration of Capital.
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