The climax of civilisation / by Correa Moylan Walsh.

  • Walsh, Correa Moylan, 1862-1936.
Date:
1917
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The climax of civilisation / by Correa Moylan Walsh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    according to one’s possessions. Before, the relations between classes were determined by custom and consisted mostly in ser- vices; now all relations between free persons, except that be- tween husband and wife (and this too tends to become so) are contracted for in monetary payments, as, for instance, the one already noticed between the government and the soldiers. Money, therefore, reigns as the prime mover and the one general object of desire.* In the ascending period, money growing in abundance from either increased production of the precious metals, or the em- ployment of credit substitutes, or both, prices rise; and this favours the producers of commodities, who get continually greater returns on their original outlay of borrowed capital. Later, the mines giving out, or the class of those who have capital to lend getting into power and corralling the money supply, prices, through many fluctuations often purposely man- ipulated, gradually fall, and the causes of the fall are carefully nursed, whereby the possessors of loanable capital benefit at the expense of the producers. The corporation system, originally employed for religious, sociable, or eleemosynary purposes, is now put to service not only by industrialists but by financiers ; and by large combinations of the last monopolies are formed, which, turned over to business-managers, crush out smaller rivals by unfair competition, and strive to stem the fall of prices, even to raise them, by purposely curtailing production. Such consolidation of capital goes on after the consolidation of the state has come toastand. Now either the state or corpora- tions manage everything, and individual initiative sinks to a minimum. | The persons who make their fortune in this easy way, try to solidify it by safe investments, which ultimately centre in land; so that a concentration of landownership goes on, the newly rich, whose number necessarily is small, purchasing large tracts from the many long-time owners of small portions, who are ruined through inability to compete with large-scale pro- duction. Yet large-scale production, when left in command 4Cf. Mill: “One of the effects of a high state of civilisation upon char- acter is a relaxation of individual energy, or rather the concentration of it within the narrow sphere of the individual’s money-getting pursuits,” op. cit., 203.