What's What in AmericaBrewster, Eugene V. (Eugene Valentine)
History
What's What in America
Brewster, Eugene V. (Eugene Valentine)
United States -- Civilization; United States -- Social life and customs
These, in brief, are some of the facts which render irresistible the
conclusion that localization of industries and specialization of men is
the natural and inevitable condition of the future.
Now, if every locality shall in the future have its specialty and other
localities will not compete with it, as we have shown they often cannot,
then locality monopolizes that specialty.
Thus the people of Gloversville will probably obtain a monopoly of the
glove industry, likewise the people of Troy of the collar and cuff
industry, the people of Wilkes-Barre of the coal industry, and the
people of Omaha, Kansas City or Chicago, of the meat-packing industry,
and the people of Haverstraw of the brick industry--not only because of
their training and experience, but because of natural adaptation, or of
geological or geographical advantages.
Here, then, are natural monopolies at many points, and we may as well
legislate to stop the tides from rising and falling as to resist this
natural economic movement. While not necessarily a Trust, it partakes of
the nature of the Trust in effect, and it may properly be classed with
the Trust for all present purposes.
Thus, monopoly results from two known causes: the operation of the laws
of co-operation, and the operation of the laws of localization and
specialization.
INTERDEPENDENCE OF MEN
Since one can no longer make his own shoes alone and must summon the aid
of thousands of his fellows in this simple industry, so must he have the
assistance of many more thousands of his fellows to supply him with the
numerous other articles needed for his comfort. In exchange for their
aid he gives his own labor in his chosen calling, and thus does he and
every other man become a necessary unit in the vast universal
organization. All men and all industries are interdependent. Without
the steel industry, the shoe industry fails for want of nails, eyelets
and machines. Without the paper industry the steel industry fails for
want of paper, car-wheels, books, stationery, the mails and the
telegraph. Without the silk and cotton industries the glove industry
cannot thrive, and so on throughout the entire list.
SOME PARTY HISTORY IN PASSING.
Thomas Jefferson, the father of the present Democratic party, was an
individualist. He was opposed to the expenditure of public money in
repairing highways, to building state canals and to establishing even a
national university. He was strongly opposed to the government ownership
principle, and maintained that that government is best which governs
least. The keynote of his philosophy was "free individual enterprise."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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