But the general
movement is in favour of large businesses. Everywhere the big business
is swallowing up the smaller, and in its turn is liable to be swallowed
by a bigger one. In manufacture, where the cosmopolitan character is
strongest, and where machinery plays so large a part, the movement
towards vast businesses is most marked; each year makes it more rapid,
and more general. But in wholesale and retail distribution, though
somewhat slower, the tendency is the same. Even in agriculture, where
close personal care and the limitations of a local market temper the
larger tendency, the recent annals of Western America and Australia
supply startling evidence of the concentrative force of machinery. The
meaning of this movement in capital must not be mistaken. It is not
merely that among competing businesses, the larger showing themselves
the stronger survive, and the smaller, out-competed disappear. This of
course often happens. The big screw-manufacturer able to provide some
new labour-saving machinery, to advertise more effectively, or even to
sell at a loss for a period of time, can drown his weaker competitors
and take their trade. The small tradesman can no longer hold his own in
the fight with the universal provider, or the co-operative store.
But this destruction of the small business, though an essential factor
in the movement, is not perhaps the most important aspect. The
industrial superiority of the large business over the small makes for
the concentration both of small capitals and of business ability.
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