Such was the history of nearly all 'radicalism'
and 'democracy' from the days of Cleon and Alcibiades down to the
present time.
But the enormous developments of science and of industry have of late
years opened newer and broader views to the world. As capital has
progressed in its action it is seen that at every step labor is
becoming--slowly, but surely, as Heaven's law--identified with it. The
harmony of interests is now no longer a vague Fourieristic notion,--for
nothing is plainer than that the more the operative becomes interested
in the success of the enterprise which employs him, the better is it for
him and it. And all _work_ in it--the owner and the employee. But then,
we are told that 'the owner gets the profits.' Does he? Sum up the
companies and capitalists who have failed during the past
decade,--compare what they have lost with what they have paid their
workmen, and then see who have really pocketed the money, and whether on
the whole the capitalists have been more than properly repaid for their
risks, and wear and tear of _brains_. To be sure we are as yet far from
having realized a regularly arranged harmony of interests. But I see
that here, even in this New England, there is nothing which the great
and most intelligent capitalists desire more than this harmony, or a
system in which every man's brains and labor shall be properly and
abundantly remunerated, since they see (as all must see who reflect)
that the nearer we approach such practical adjustment of forces, the
less liable will they be to fail.
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