th the eighteenth-century movement to limit the power of the ruling
class is sound in view of the political and economic conditions which
exist to-day. The so-called industrial revolution has accomplished
sweeping and far-reaching changes in economic organization. It has
resulted in a transfer of industrial power from the many to the few, who
now exercise in all matters relating to production an authority as
absolute and irresponsible as that which the ruling class exercised in
the middle of the eighteenth century over the state itself. The simple
decentralized and more democratic system of production which formerly
prevailed has thus been supplanted by a highly centralized and
thoroughly oligarchic form of industrial organization. At the same time
political development has been tending strongly in the direction of
democracy. The few have been losing their hold upon the state, which has
come to rest, in theory at least, upon the wall of the many. A political
transformation amounting to a revolution has placed the many in the same
position in relation to the government which was formerly held by the
favored few.

As a result of these political and economic changes the policy of
government regulation of industry is likely to be regarded by the masses
with increasing favor. A society organized as a political democracy can
not be expected to tolerate an industrial aristocracy. As soon, then, as
the masses come to feel that they really control the political
machinery, the irresponsible power which the few now exercise in the
management of industry will be limited or destroyed as it has already
been largely overthrown in the state itself. In fact the doctrine of
_laissez faire_ no longer expresses the generally accepted view of state
functions, but merely the selfish view of that relatively small class
which, though it controls the industrial system, feels the reins of
political control slipping out of its hands. The limitation of
governmental functions which was the rallying-cry of the liberals a
century ago has thus become the motto of the present-day conservative.

The opponents of government regulation of industry claim that it will
retard or arrest progress by restricting the right of individual
initiative. They profess to believe that the best results for society as
a whole are obtained when every corporation or industrial combination is
allowed to manage its business with a free hand. It is assumed by those
who advoca