DESTRUCTIVE TENDENCY OF CAPITALISM.

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 64, 31 May 1912, Page 2

DESTRUCTIVE TENDENCY OF CAPITALISM.

Capitalism is self-destructive; and, what is most striking, is itself laying the foundation of tbe futuro state. Its iirst act was the expropriation of tho workers from the means of production, the transformation of individual property into capitalist property. Tho next stage, in tho midst of which we now are, is the expropriation of the small capitalist by tho largo, and the concentration of capital, through tho play and pressure of competition, into cvon larger masses. Competition tends irresistibly to combination and monopoly, which in productive industries arc now taking tho form of tho trust; in distribution, of the bazaar store. The unmistakably greator efficiency of massed capital and business organisation on a large scale will sooner or later render tho position of tfJio small producer and tho small distributor untenable. They havo as little chance in the struggle with these improved forms of commercial organisation as (he handicraftsman had with tho machines. Competition, whose regulative action is so vital to our present system, so largely adduced in its justification, competition is eliminating itself. The organisation of industry, though remaining capitalistic in spirit, tends more and more to tho co-operative form. In another direction the development- is even more distinctly Socialist in form. A strong tendency is manifest towards State or municipal control of many industries. The first ston is State regulation, which is in itself an admission of the principle of State interference —the right of the people to control. : From partial regulation to absolute ownership by tho neoplo is a question of policy, of degree, rather than of principle.—H. W. S. McClure.