12. Augury of the Future.

It is presumptuous to prophesy, but one may hazard a guess as to distribution of wealth in the future. First, then, there will be large private capitalists, with or without profit-sharing. These will be incorporated frequently in wealthy companies. Small capitalists standing by themselves will grow fewer and fewer. Hesiod of old sang:

Small craft praise and admire, but stow thou thy wares in a large ship.

So it is, that trade is entering into waters where nothing will float but either large argosies or large flotillas.

Secondly, there will be individuals of small means, half capitalist and half workman, banded together in common enterprises of Co-operation and Profit-sharing.

Thirdly, most wonderful event of all, there will be large municipal or communal property, mills, mines, stores, land, and particularly workmen’s dwelling-houses. Local government in those days will be vastly developed, and great part of the total taxation will be under municipal control.

In that day, the working man will have the shrewdness to perceive, that it is much more his interest to have a potent voice in the management of municipal affairs than in the government of the empire. Municipal capital, therefore, will be fairly controlled by the workers : it will not be mere matter of bourgeoisie jobbery.

The men employed in the corporation works will live in the corporation dwelling-houses. The liberal treatment they receive, so to speak, at their own hands, will compel all private employers and companies, if they mean to find men to work for them, to treat their workpeople well, and especially to see them well lodged.

But this is Socialism ! No, it is not. Socialism allows of no private capital whatever. I look forward in ages to come to see private capital and communal capital working side by side in amicable and advantageous competition, the presence of either operating as a corrective to the peculiar abuses to which its rival is liable.