Title | Socialism summed up |
Creator (LCNAF) |
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Publisher | The H. K. Fly Co. |
Place of Creation (TGN) |
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Date | 1913 |
Subject.Topical (LCSH) |
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Genre (AAT) |
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Language | English |
Type (DCMI) |
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Original Item Extent | 110 pages: illustrations; 20 cm. |
Original Item Location | HX86.H77 1914 |
Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b8304545~S11 |
Original Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/scpamp |
Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
Repository URL | http://libraries.uh.edu/branches/special-collections |
Use and Reproduction | This item is in the public domain and may be used freely. |
File Name | index.cpd |
Title | Image 13 |
Format (IMT) |
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File Name | uhlib_2100825_012.jpg |
Transcript | CAUSES THAT MAKE FOR SOCIALISM u their industry is at best a mere subsistence wage. The fruits of their labor go largely to the possessor of the productive capital as an involuntary tax or license fee. Thus modern society is split into two principal economic classes: the users of the machinery of production, who do not own it, and the owners, who do not use it; the employers and the employees, the capitalists and the workers, those who derive their income from "profits" and those who depend for their living on "wages." The classes are not fixed by law, but they are determined just as effectively by economic position, and as the modern industrial system is unfolding, they tend to become permanent and even hereditary. A lucky workingman or clerk may still occasionally be lifted into the coveted realms of wealth and power, but the probabilities of such a rise are not much greater than the proverbial chances of each soldier in the Napoleonic army to be advanced to the rank of field marshal. The vast mass of wage- earners are doomed to factory work for life, and their children are predestined factory hands. And similarly capitalism is rapidly becoming a hereditary status. The "self-made man," the pioneer of a new industry, is fast passing away. Modern wealth is largely in the hands of second or third generations. The gay heir who squanders his fortune and is reduced to the original poverty of his grandsires, becomes rarer, as the fortunes of the individual capitalists grow in bulk, and corporate management supersedes individual initiative. |