s steadily
progressing, an improvement in our economic life set in during 1887-8,
stimulated in no slight degree by the extensive changes introduced in
our army and navy systems. The upward movement continued during 1889 and
up into the first quarter of 1890. During this period, a number of new
establishments began to crop up everywhere in several fields of
industry; a large number of others were enlarged and improved to the
highest point of technical perfection, and their capacity greatly
increased. In the same measure that this large capitalist development
progressed, a larger and ever larger number of establishments passed
from the hands of individual capitalists into stock corporations--a
change that ever is more or less connected with an increase of
production. The new issues, that, as a result of these combinations and
due also to the increase of the public debt, were contracted in the
international money market, ran up in 1887 to about 4,000 million marks;
in 1888, to 5,500 million; and in 1889, to even 7,000 million. On the
other hand, the capitalists of all countries were endeavoring to
"regulate" prices and production by means of national and international
agreements. Rings and Trusts sprang up like mushrooms over night. The
majority, often all the capitalists concerned in the more important
branches of production, formed syndicates, by means of which prices were
fixed, and production was to be regulated by the light of accurate
statistical information. Over-production was thus to be prevented. A
marvelous monopolization of industry, such as had never been seen, was
thus achieved in the interest of the capitalists and at the expense of
the workingmen, and of the consumers in general. For a while it seemed
as if capital had come into possession of the means that enabled it to
control the market in all directions, to the injury of the public and to
its own greater glory. But appearances deceived. The laws of capitalist
production proved themselves stronger than the shrewdest representatives
of the system who imagined they held in their hands the power to
regulate it. The crisis set in. One of the largest international
business houses of England fell and involved a number of others in its
fall. All exchanges and markets--of London, Paris, Vienna and Berlin, as
far as St. Petersburg, New York and Calcutta--shook and trembled. It had
again been shown that the profoundest calculations prove deceptive, and
that capita