"Edward Bellamy. Lookimg Backward From 2000 to 1887" - читать интересную книгу автора

the era of small concerns with small capital was succeeded by
that of the great aggregations of capital, all this was changed.
The individual laborer, who had been relatively important to the
small employer, was reduced to insignificance and powerlessness
over against the great corporation, while at the same time the
way upward to the grade of employer was closed to him.
Self-defense drove him to union with his fellows.

"The records of the period show that the outcry against the
concentration of capital was furious. Men believed that it
threatened society with a form of tyranny more abhorrent than
it had ever endured. They believed that the great corporations
were preparing for them the yoke of a baser servitude than had
ever been imposed on the race, servitude not to men but to
soulless machines incapable of any motive but insatiable greed.
Looking back, we cannot wonder at their desperation, for
certainly humanity was never confronted with a fate more sordid
and hideous than would have been the era of corporate tyranny
which they anticipated.

"Meanwhile, without being in the smallest degree checked by
the clamor against it, the absorption of business by ever larger
monopolies continued. In the United States there was not, after
the beginning of the last quarter of the century, any opportunity
whatever for individual enterprise in any important field of
industry, unless backed by a great capital. During the last decade
of the century, such small businesses as still remained were
fast-failing survivals of a past epoch, or mere parasites on the
great corporations, or else existed in fields too small to attract
the great capitalists. Small businesses, as far as they still
remained, were reduced to the condition of rats and mice, living
in holes and corners, and counting on evading notice for the
enjoyment of existence. The railroads had gone on combining
till a few great syndicates controlled every rail in the land. In
manufactories, every important staple was controlled by a syndicate.
These syndicates, pools, trusts, or whatever their name,
fixed prices and crushed all competition except when combinations
as vast as themselves arose. Then a struggle, resulting in a
still greater consolidation, ensued. The great city bazar crushed
it country rivals with branch stores, and in the city itself
absorbed its smaller rivals till the business of a whole quarter was
concentrated under one roof, with a hundred former proprietors
of shops serving as clerks. Having no business of his own to put
his money in, the small capitalist, at the same time that he took
service under the corporation, found no other investment for his
money but its stocks and bonds, thus becoming doubly dependent
upon it.

"The fact that the desperate popular opposition to the consolidation
of business in a few powerful hands had no effect to