The employer was master of the situation in the days of small firms with modest capitals. Modern big business has outgrown their resources. Joint stock companies have succeeded to firms, and Trusts to joint stock companies. Multiple shops are conquering the retail trade. Enormous capitals now required. Resultant rise of the financier, whose special function it is to procure such capitals and promote companies to exploit them. Thus the owner-employer becomes the employed employer, and, as an employee, falls into the proletariat. His son cannot succeed him, as he could when the employer was also the owner. This disappearance of the old nepotism in business is a public advantage, but abolishes heredity in the business class. “The Middle Station in Life” so highly praised by Defoe is now the least eligible in the community. 177 46 THE PROLETARIAT The slogan of Karl Marx. The reduction of the middle class employer to a proletarian employee produces Socialism. The Fabian Society. Its success as a middle class society. Failure of its Socialist rivals as working class societies. Working class organization against Capitalism. Trade Unionism, or the Capitalism of the working class proletariat. 183 47 THE LABOR MARKET AND THE FACTORY ACTS Employers and employed alike buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest markets open to them. Resultant opposition of interest between the buyer of labor and the seller of it. The Class War. Its atrocities. Slaves better cared for than “free” vendors of their own labor. Exposures by Karl Marx. Restraints imposed by factory legislation. Opposition by employers. Their apprehension not justified by the effect of the Acts. Opposition of the proletariat. Its parental interest in child labor. The parish apprentices. Prices in the labor market. The value of labor falls to zero. The theory of Capitalism. The Manchester school. Failure of the Capitalist system to make good its guarantees. The reserve army of unemployed. The Statute of Elizabeth. The workhouse. Child sweating practically compulsory on parents. 187 48 WOMEN IN THE LABOR MARKET