Consequently, classes of people grow relatively
poorer as fast as other bodies of people or individuals grow richer;
the extremes of riches and poverty constantly increasing.
Every advance in the producing capacity of machinery gives organized
capital a better hold on labor, because capital owns the machinery,
and, in homely phrase, labor "is the under dog in the fight" all of the
time. It makes no practical difference to it whether the laborer
becomes capitalist or no, for the moment he becomes so he is engaged in
the same crusade. He is no better nor worse than the one whom we called
capitalist yesterday. It is the _unnatural position_ or
_relation_ of _capital and labor_ that makes him what he is.
To change this relation to a more just one was among the grandest ideas
of the Brook Farmers, and the only way it could possibly be done, in
their estimation, was by reorganizing society on a new basis; by
combining the capital of the workers and others interested and using it
so as finally to control machinery for the benefit of labor, and to
reduce its hours of toil so that the laborer could have time for self-
improvement.
Having traced the progress of society from its earliest forms to our
present civilization, it can be easily shown how the supreme or
governing power is first in the hands of the most powerful physically;
then passes to the one most able by prowess to sway a tribe or people;
then passes into the hierarchy of the church, that rules by swaying
mental terrors; next into the hierarchy of the state, that rules by
both mental and physical terrors; and, in our present civilization, has
passed or is passing rapidly into the hands of a moneyed class ruling
with powers according to the amount of capital swayed; and it can be
proved that these changes are but the natural result of forces that are
as sure and constant as sunlight and electricity.
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