It will not probably be denied that the burden of proof is on those who affirm that our social condition is utterly diseased and
in need of radical regeneration. my task at present, therefore, is entirely negative and critical: to examine the allegations of fact and the doctrines which are put forward to prove the correctness of the diagnosis and to warrant the use of the remedies proposed. when anyone asserts that the class of skilled and unskilled manual laborers of the united states is worse off now in respect to diet, clothing, lodgings, furniture, fuel, and lights; in respect to the age at which they can marry; the number of children they can provide for; the start in life which they can give to their children, and their chances of accumulating capital, than they ever have been at any former time, he makes a reckless assertion for which no facts have been offered in proof. upon an appeal to facts, the contrary of this assertion would be clearly established. it suffices, therefore, to challenge those who are responsible for the assertion to make it good. nine-tenths of the socialistic and semi-socialistic, and sentimental or ethical, suggestions by which we are overwhelmed come from failure to understand the phenomena of the industrial organization and its expansion. it controls us all because we are all in it. it creates the conditions of our existence, sets the limits of our social activity, regulates the bonds of our social relations, determines our conceptions of good and evil, suggests our life-philosophy, molds our inherited political institutions, and reforms the oldest and toughest customs, like marriage and property. i repeat that the turmoil of heterogeneous and antagonistic social whims and speculations in which we live is due to the failure to understand what the industrial organization is and its all-pervading control over human life, while the traditions of our school of philosophy lead us always to approach the industrial organization, not from the side of objective study, but from that of philosophical doctrine. hence it is that we find that the method of measuring what we see happening by what are called ethical standards, and of proposing to attack the phenomena by methods thence deduced, is so popular. the advance of a new country from the very simplest social coordination up to the highest organization is a most interesting and instructive chance to study the development of the organization. it has of course been attended all the way along by stricter subordination and higher discipline. all organization implies restriction of liberty. the gain of power is won by narrowing individual range. the methods of business in colonial days were loose and slack to an inconceivable degree. the movement of industry has been all the time toward promptitude, punctuality, and reliability. it has been attended all the way by lamentations about the good old times; about the decline of small industries; about the lost spirit of comradeship between employer and employee; about the narrowing of the interests of the workman; about his conversion into a machine or into a "ware," and about industrial war. these lamentations have all had reference to unquestionable phenomena attendant on advancing organization. in all occupations the same movement is discernible in the learned professions, in schools, in trade, commerce, and transportation. it is to go on faster than ever, now that the continent is filled up by the first superficial layer of population over its whole extent and the intensification of industry has begun. the great inventions both make the intension of the organization possible and make it inevitable, with all its consequences, whatever they may be. i must expect to be told here, according to the current fashions of thinking, that we ought to control the development of the organization. the first instinct of the modern man is to get a law passed to forbid or prevent what, in his wisdom, he disapproves. now the intensification of the social organization is what gives us greater social power. it is to it that we owe our increased comfort and abundance. we are none of us ready to sacrifice this. on the contrary, we want more of it. we would not return to the colonial simplicity and the colonial exiguity if we could. if not, then we must pay the price. our life is bounded on every side by conditions.
