becoming
in all cases _nil_, and the best available methods of production would
everywhere be found surviving and bestowing their entire fruits on
laborers and capitalists. All this is involved in saying that the
static model, the form of which was determined by the conditions of
1800, would have been realized. This would have been brought about by
suppressing at that date the forces which cause organic change and by
giving to competition a perfectly unobstructed field. If we had done
this in 1900, instead of at the earlier date, economic society would,
in a like way, have conformed to the shape required by the conditions
of 1900; and this would have been very different from the shape which
the static forces would have given to society a century earlier. There
is an ideal static shape for every period, and no two of these static
shapes are alike.

_Differences between the Actual Shape of Society and the Static One at
Any One Time._--The actual shape of society at any one time is not the
static model of that time; but it tends to conform to it, and in a
very dynamic society is more nearly like it than it would be in one in
which the forces of change are less active. With all the transforming
influences to which American industrial society is subject, it to-day
conforms more closely to a normal form than do the more conservative
societies of Europe and far more closely than do the sluggish
societies of Asia. A viscous liquid in a vessel may show a surface
that is far from level; but a highly fluid substance will come nearly
to a level, even though we shake the vessel containing it vigorously
enough to create waves on the surface and currents throughout the
whole mass. This is a fair representation of a society in a highly
dynamic condition. Its very activities tend to bring it nearer to its
static model than it would be if its constituent materials were not
fluid and if it were never agitated. The static shape itself, though
it is never completely copied in the actual shape of society, is for
scientific purposes a reality. There are powerful influences tending
to force the industrial organization at every point to conform to it.
The level of the sea is a reality, though the motion of the waters
never subsides sufficiently to make their surface accurately conform
to it. As vigorously agitated, the water shows a surface that is
nearer to the ideal level than would an ocean of mud, tar, or other
sluggishly flowing stuff. Th