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

assume the conduct of their own business, just as one hundred
odd years before they had assumed the conduct of their own
government, organizing now for industrial purposes on precisely
the same grounds that they had then organized for political
purposes. At last, strangely late in the world's history, the obvious
fact was perceived that no business is so essentially the
public business as the industry and commerce on which the
people's livelihood depends, and that to entrust it to private
persons to be managed for private profit is a folly similar in kind,
though vastly greater in magnitude, to that of surrendering the
functions of political government to kings and nobles to be
conducted for their personal glorification."

"Such a stupendous change as you describe," said I, "did not,
of course, take place without great bloodshed and terrible
convulsions."

"On the contrary," replied Dr. Leete, "there was absolutely no
violence. The change had been long foreseen. Public opinion
had become fully ripe for it, and the whole mass of the people
was behind it. There was no more possibility of opposing it by
force than by argument. On the other hand the popular sentiment
toward the great corporations and those identified with
them had ceased to be one of bitterness, as they came to realize
their necessity as a link, a transition phase, in the evolution of
the true industrial system. The most violent foes of the great
private monopolies were now forced to recognize how invaluable
and indispensable had been their office in educating the people
up to the point of assuming control of their own business. Fifty
years before, the consolidation of the industries of the country
under national control would have seemed a very daring experiment
to the most sanguine. But by a series of object lessons, seen
and studied by all men, the great corporations had taught the
people an entirely new set of ideas on this subject. They had
seen for many years syndicates handling revenues greater than
those of states, and directing the labors of hundreds of thousands
of men with an efficiency and economy unattainable in smaller
operations. It had come to be recognized as an axiom that the
larger the business the simpler the principles that can be applied
to it; that, as the machine is truer than the hand, so the system,
which in a great concern does the work of the master's eye in a
small business, turns out more accurate results. Thus it came
about that, thanks to the corporations themselves, when it was
proposed that the nation should assume their functions, the
suggestion implied nothing which seemed impracticable even to
the timid. To be sure it was a step beyond any yet taken, a
broader generalization, but the very fact that the nation would
be the sole corporation in the field would, it was seen, relieve the
undertaking of many difficulties with which the partial monopolies
had contended."