ions rather lead me to infer that the extreme complexity
of the administrative problems presented by modern industrial
civilization is beyond the compass of the capitalistic mind. If this be
so, American society, as at present organized, with capitalists for the
dominant class, can concentrate no further, and, as nothing in the
universe is at rest, if it does not concentrate, it must, probably,
begin to disintegrate. Indeed we may perceive incipient signs of
disintegration all about us. We see, for example, an universal contempt
for law, incarnated in the capitalistic class itself, which is
responsible for order, and in spite of the awful danger which impends
over every rich and physically helpless type should the coercive power
collapse. We see it even more distinctly in the chronic war between
capital and labor, which government is admittedly unable to control; we
see it in the slough of urban politics, inseparable from capitalistic
methods of maintaining its ascendancy; and, perhaps, most disquieting of
all, we see it in the dissolution of the family which has, for untold
ages, been the seat of discipline and the foundation of authority. For
the dissolution of the family is peculiarly a phenomenon of our
industrial age, and it is caused by the demand of industry for the cheap
labor of women and children. Napoleon told the lawyers who drafted the
Code that he insisted on one thing alone. They must fortify the family,
for, said he, if the family is responsible to the father and the father
to me, I can keep order in France. One of the difficulties, therefore,
which capital has to meet, by the aid of such administrative ability as
it can command, is how to keep order when society no longer rests on the
cohesive family, but on highly volatilized individuals as incohesive as
grains of sand.

Meditating upon these matters, it is hard to resist the persuasion that
unless capital can, in the immediate future, generate an intellectual
energy, beyond the sphere of its specialized calling, very much in
excess of any intellectual energy of which it has hitherto given
promise, and unless it can besides rise to an appreciation of diverse
social conditions, as well as to a level of political sagacity, far
higher than it has attained within recent years, its relative power in
the community must decline. If this be so the symptoms which indicate
social disintegration will intensify. As they intensify, the ability of
industrial capital