ned to be a matter of
secondary consideration and importance, and it is stated that the
world suffers rather from over-production than from under-production.
"The tendency of the conditions of employment under present
circumstances, under the capitalist system, always is for production
to outstrip consumption."[202] "Our power to produce has always, since
the beginnings of capitalism, shown a tendency to grow more rapidly
than our power to consume."[203] "Then because there is a plethora of
goods and a dearth of purchasers, the workshops are closed and Hunger
lashes the working population with his thousand-thonged whip. The
workers, stupefied by the dogma of work, do not understand that the
cause of their present misery is the overwork that they have inflicted
on themselves during the time of sham prosperity."[204] "For some
insane reason the capitalist has thought of nothing but
production."[205] "If, by a fiat from heaven, the wealth of the world
were doubled to-morrow and the present system of capitalistic monopoly
and commercial competition were allowed to continue, the social misery
would, in a very short time, reappear in a form even still more
accentuated, were that possible. Individualism, commercialism,
capitalism--call it what we may--has demonstrably produced the
evil."[206]

THE EXISTING CAPITALIST SYSTEM IS RESPONSIBLE FOR POVERTY, WANT, AND
UNEMPLOYMENT

Unemployment is largely caused by commercial crises, commercial crises
are caused by over-production, over-production is caused by the fact
that the national industries are divided and the industrial output is
regulated not by the nation in accordance with the national demand but
by irresponsible private individuals whose aim is profit, not the
fulfilment of a national demand. "The causes of commercial depression
lie in the non-consumption of the incomes of our millionaires."[207]
Another Socialist writer asserts: "Our era is cursed with crises
occurring far more frequently than plagues and causing as much misery.
Economists say that these crises are caused by over-production.
Private enterprise compels every producer to produce for himself, to
sell for himself, to keep all his transactions to himself, without
regard to anybody else in the wide world. Merchants have got no
measure at hand by which they can, even approximately, either
estimate the effective demand of their customers or ascertain the
producing capacity of their rivals. Production by all