up, we may state the argument of this chapter very briefly as
follows: The Socialist theory is that competition is self-destructive,
and that the inevitable result of the competitive process is to produce
monopoly, either through the crushing out of the weak by the strong, or
the combination of units as a result of a conscious recognition of the
wastes of competition and the advantages of cooeperation. The law of
capitalist development, therefore, is from competition and division to
combination and concentration. As this concentration proceeds, a large
class of proletarians is formed on the one hand, and a small class of
capitalist lords on the other, an essential antagonism of interests
existing between the two classes. Petty industries may continue to
exist, though, upon the whole, the tendency is toward their extinction.
In certain industries, their number may even increase, but their
relative importance is constantly decreasing. While Socialism does not
preclude the continued existence of small private industry or business,
it does require and depend upon the development of a large body of
concentrated industry, monopolies which can be transformed into social
monopolies whenever the people may decide so to transform them. These
conditions are being fulfilled in the evolution of our economic system.

The interindustrial and international trustification of industry shows a
remarkable fulfillment of the law of capitalist concentration which the
Socialists were the first to formulate; the existence of petty
industries and businesses, or their numerical increase even, being a
relatively insignificant matter compared with the enormous increase in
large industries and businesses, and their share in the total volume of
industry and commerce. In agriculture, concentration, while it does not
proceed so rapidly or directly as in manufacture and commerce, and while
it takes directions and forms unforeseen by the Socialists of a
generation ago, proceeds surely nevertheless. Along with this
concentration of capital and industry proceeds the concentration of
wealth into proportionately fewer hands. While a certain diffusion of
wealth takes place through the mechanism of capitalist concentration, by
developing a new class of highly salaried officials, and enabling
numerous small investors to own shares in great industrial and
commercial corporations, it is not sufficient to balance the
expropriation which goes on in the competitive