I gave in the first chapter a brief outline of my view of the process of wealth-concentration. It is now time to consider the present status of affairs, and determine if we can exactly how near to completion our industrial machinery has come. Because of the vital part which the question of foreign markets has played and must play in our affairs, it is necessary that this inquiry should include a careful survey of conditions in the rest of the world. The manufactures of the United States have grown from one hundred and ninety-eight million dollars in 1810, to five billion in 1890, and thirteen billion in 1900. Our exports to foreign countries increased from sixty-six million dollars in 1810 to eight hundred and fifty-six million in 1890, and a billion and half in 1905. Of course, if we could find unlimited markets abroad we might go on for half a century, or at least until our people grew tired of doing hard work for the rest of the world, and getting in return either bad debts, or else money to be used in building new machines to do more work of the same sort. But this is not the case, as it happens; there are half a dozen nations that have been building up industrial machines of their own, and have completed them; the meaning of the Socialist movements of England and Germany and France and Belgium and Italy is simply that all these nations are now able to manufacture more than their own people are able to buy, under the old deadly combination of a monopoly price and a competitive wage. And so when we go over to Europe to look for markets, we meet people who are coming over to look for markets among us; and when in our desperation we begin to sell out at any cost, the German capitalist cries out in protest, and the German workingmen are thrown on the streets, and the German Socialists increase their vote. And when the German capitalist retaliates and sells out at cost, _our_ capitalists are checked, and _our_ mills are stopped—and _our_ Socialist vote goes up.