he old joy and
satisfaction. Failing this recovery, no reorganization of industrial
relations, neither profit-sharing nor shop committees, neither
nationalization nor state socialism, neither the abolition of capital,
nor Soviets nor syndicalism nor the dictatorship of the proletariat will
get us anywhere. It is all a waste of time, and, through its ultimate
failure and disappointments, an intensification of an industrial
disease.

Why is it that this is so? For an answer I must probe deep and, it may
seem, cut wildly. I believe it is because we have built up a system that
goes far outside the limits of human scale, transcends human capacity,
is forbidden by the laws and conditions of life, and must be abrogated
if it is not to destroy itself and civilization in the process.

What, precisely has taken place? Late in the eighteenth century two
things happened; the discovery of the potential inherent in coal and its
derivative, steam, with electricity yet unexploited but ready to hand,
and the application of this to industrial purposes, together with the
initiating of a long and astounding series of discoveries and inventions
all applicable to industrial purposes. With a sort of vertiginous
rapidity the whole industrial process was transformed from what it had
been during the period of recorded history; steam and machinery took the
place of brain and hand power directly applied, and a revolution greater
than any other was effected.

The new devices were hailed as "labour-saving" but they vastly increased
labour both in hours of work and in hands employed. Bulk production
through the factory system was inevitable, the result being an enormous
surplus over the normal and local demand. To organize and conduct these
processes of bulk-production required money greater in amount than
individuals could furnish; so grew up capitalism, the joint-stock
company, credit and cosmopolitan finance. To produce profits and
dividends markets must be found for the huge surplus product. This was
accomplished by stimulating the covetousness of people for things they
had not thought of, under normal conditions would not, in many cases,
need, and very likely would be happier without, and in "dumping" on
supposedly barbarous peoples in remote parts of the world, articles
alien to their traditions and their mode of life and generally
pestiferous in their influence and results. So came advertising in all
its branches, direct and indirect, from