Doubtless Marx anticipated a much more complete concentration of capital and industry than has yet taken place; doubtless, too, he underrated the powers of endurance of some petty industries, and saw the breakdown of capitalism in a cataclysm, whereas modern Socialists see its merging into a form of socialization. But, when all this is admitted, it cannot be fairly said that the sum of criticism has seriously affected the general Marxian theory, as apart from its particular exposition by Marx himself. So far as the criticism has touched the subject of capitalist concentration, it has been pitifully weak, and the furore it has created seems almost pathetic. The main results of this criticism may be briefly summarized as follows: First, in industry, the persistence, and, in some cases, even increase, of petty industries; second, in agriculture, the failure of large-scale farming, and the decrease of the average farm acreage; third, in retail trade, the persistence of the small stores, despite the growth in size and number of the great department stores; fourth, the fact that concentration of industry does not imply a like concentration of wealth, the number of shareholders in a great industrial combination being frequently greater than the number of owners in the units of industry prior to the combination. At first sight, and stated in this manner, it would seem as if these conclusions, if justified by the facts, involved a serious and far-reaching criticism of the Socialist theory of a universal tendency toward the concentration of industry and commerce into units of ever increasing magnitude.