Rome, for centuries, was governed by an
emperor, who represented the landed class of Italy, under the forms of a
republic. It is not by any means necessary that a plutocratic mass should
have a recognized political head. And America and England, like two
enormous banking houses, might in effect fuse and yet go on as separate
institutions with nominally separate boards of directors.
But it is inconceivable that even such an expedient as this, however
successful at the outset, should permanently solve the problem, which
resolves itself once more into individual competition. It is not
imaginable that such an enormous plutocratic society as I have supposed
could conduct its complex affairs upon the basis of the average
intelligence. As in Rome, a civil service would inevitably be organized
which would contain a carefully selected body of ability. We have seen
such a process, in its initial stages, in the recent war. And such a civil
service, however selected and however trained, would, to succeed, have to
be composed of men who were the ablest in their calling, the best
educated, and the fittest: in a word, the representatives of what we call
"the big business" of the country. Such as they might handle the
railroads, the telegraph lines, the food supply, the question of
competitive shipping, and finally prices, as we have seen it done, but
only on condition that they belonged to the fortunate class by merit.
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