revailed in historic times, the capitalist system of
economic control has its limitations, and like many another system, it
seems to have reached them.

6. _The Growth of Capitalism_

The existing economic order has grown to its present proportions
competitively and nationalistically, without any centralized supervisory
control (without any board of strategy) just as one of the Canadian
cities out upon the plains has grown, or rather sprawled over the
prairie--each man building how and when and where he liked, each
industry choosing its own location, stores, schools, churches, theatres,
squatting at those points that seemed to be the centres of the crowd
life. Mines have been opened, factories established, railroads built,
electric plants constructed, by some individual or corporation
interested in making a profit on the investment, and with little or no
relation to the well-being of the community. There has been no
recognized intelligent guidance behind the development of the industrial
system.

In so far as the present economic life was planned, it was planned
locally, by the directors of one industry, by the chamber of commerce of
some city, by a far-sighted banker or financier who insisted upon
thinking in terms of the coming business generation. For the most part
the system grew, however, like stalks of corn in a field, each stalk
drawing its own nourishment from the soil and making what progress it
could along its own path toward the zenith.

Another serious drawback in the growth of the present economic system is
that much of it was developed as an underground organization. Even had
they decided to do so, individual business men have not been free to
plan ahead and work out a business policy in the light of day. On the
one side were the jealous competitors, watching every move and eager to
profit by any bit of information that they could secure with regard to
the plans of their rivals. On the other side was the government, with
its conspiracy laws and its anti-trust laws, ready to swoop down on the
business director who planned too broadly or thought too far into the
future. Then, too, there was an ever-growing force in a public opinion
that was suspicious of profiteers, no matter what their professions.
With competitors on the watch here, and government officials yonder,
there was nothing for it but to work in secret, to shadow the new
policies in mystery and to get as far as possible without being foun