tened. He likes the trust. He exults in the
trust, for it is largely doing the task for him. It socializes
production; this done, there remains nothing for him to do but socialize
distribution, and all is accomplished. The trust? "It organizes
industry on an enormous, labor-saving scale, and abolishes childish,
wasteful competition." It is a gigantic object lesson, and it preaches
his political economy far more potently than he can preach it. He points
to the trust, laughing scornfully in the face of the orthodox economists.
"You told me this thing could not be," {12} he thunders. "Behold, the
thing is!"

He sees competition in the realm of production passing away. When the
captains of industry have thoroughly organized production, and got
everything running smoothly, it will be very easy for him to eliminate
the profits by stepping in and having the thing run for himself. And the
captain of industry, if he be good, may be given the privilege of
continuing the management on a fair salary. The sixty millions of
dividends which the Standard Oil Company annually declares will be
distributed among the workers. The same with the great United States
Steel Corporation. The president of that corporation knows his business.
Very good. Let him become Secretary of the Department of Iron and Steel
of the United States. But, since the chief executive of a nation of
seventy-odd millions works for $50,000 a year, the Secretary of the
Department of Iron and Steel must expect to have his salary cut
accordingly. And not only will the workers take to themselves the
profits of national and municipal monopolies, but also the immense
revenues which the dominant classes today draw from rents, and mines, and
factories, and all manner of enterprises.

* * * * *

All this would seem very like a dream, even to the worker, if it were not
for the fact that like things have been done before. He points
triumphantly to the aristocrat of the eighteenth century, who fought,
legislated, governed, and dominated society, but who was shorn of power
and displaced by the rising bourgeoisie. Ay, the thing was done, he
holds. And it shall be done again, but this time it is the proletariat
who does the shearing. Sociology has taught him that m-i-g-h-t spells
"right." Every society has been ruled by classes, and the classes have
ruled by sheer strength, and have been overthrown by sheer strength. The
bourge