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War of the Classes-Part11_JACK LONDON(1876-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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for breath. A new romance, like unto none in all the past, the



economic romance, will be born. For the dazzling prize of world-

empire will the nations of the earth go up in harness. Powers will



rise and fall, and mighty coalitions shape and dissolve in the swift

whirl of events. Vassal nations and subject territories will be



bandied back and forth like so many articles of trade. And with the

inevitable displacement of economic centres, it is fair to presume



that populations will shift to and fro, as they once did from the

South to the North of England on the rise of the factory towns, or



from the Old World to the New. Colossal enterprises will be

projected and carried through, and combinations of capital and



federations of labor be effected on a cyclopean scale.

Concentration and organization will be perfected in ways hitherto



undreamed. The nation which would keep its head above the tide must

accurately adjust supply to demand, and eliminate waste to the last



least particle. Standards of living will most likely descend for

millions of people. With the increase of capital, the competition



for safe investments, and the consequent fall of the interest rate,

the principal which today earns a comfortable income would not then



support a bare existence. Saving toward old age would cease among

the working classes. And as the merchant cities of Italy crashed



when trade slipped from their hands on the discovery of the new

route to the Indies by way of the Cape of Good Hope, so will there



come times of trembling for such nations as have failed to grasp the

prize of world-empire. In that given direction they will have



attained their maximum development, before the whole world, in the

same direction, has attained its. There will no longer be room for



them. But if they can survive the shock of being flung out of the

world's industrial orbit, a change in direction may then be easily



effected. That the decadent and barbarous peoples will be crushed

is a fair presumption; likewise that the stronger breeds will



survive, entering upon the transition stage to which all the world

must ultimately come.



This change of direction must be either toward industrial

oligarchies or socialism. Either the functions of private



corporations will increase till they absorb the central government,

or the functions of government will increase till it absorbs the



corporations. Much may be said on the chance of the oligarchy.

Should an old manufacturing nation lose its foreign trade, it is



safe to predict that a strong effort would be made to build a

socialistic government, but it does not follow that this effort



would be successful. With the moneyed class controlling the State

and its revenues and all the means of subsistence, and guarding its



own interests with jealous care, it is not at all impossible that a

strong curb could be put upon the masses till the crisis were past.



It has been done before. There is no reason why it should not be

done again. At the close of the last century, such a movement was



crushed by its own folly and immaturity. In 1871 the soldiers of

the economic rulers stamped out, root and branch, a whole generation



of militant socialists.

Once the crisis were past, the ruling class, still holding the curb



in order to make itself more secure, would proceed to readjust

things and to balance consumption with production. Having a



monopoly of the safe investments, the great masses of unremunerative

capital would be directed, not to the production of more surplus



value, but to the making of permanent improvements, which would give

employment to the people, and make them content with the new order



of things. Highways, parks, public buildings, monuments, could be

builded; nor would it be out of place to give better factories and



homes to the workers. Such in itself would be socialistic, save

that it would be done by the oligarchs, a class apart. With the



interest rate down to zero, and no field for the investment of

sporadic capital, savings among the people would utterly cease, and



old-age pensions be granted as a matter of course. It is also a

logical necessity of such a system that, when the population began



to press against the means of subsistence, (expansion being

impossible), the birth rate of the lower classes would be lessened.






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