"system"
of large business, working its material consequences through the system
of large-scale industry, but more particularly by way of the large-scale
and wide-reaching business of trade in the proper sense, draws into the
net of its control all parts of the community and all its inhabitants,
in some degree of dependence. But there is always, hitherto, an
appreciable fraction of the inhabitants--as, e.g., outlying agricultural
sections that are in a "backward" state--who are by no means closely
bound in the orderly system of business, or closely dependent on the
markets. They may be said to enjoy a degree of independence, by virtue
of their foregoing as much as may be of the advantages offered by modern
industrial specialisation. So also there are the minor and interstitial
trades that are still carried on by handicraft methods; these, too, are
still somewhat loosely held in the fabric of the business system. There
is one thing and another in this way to be taken account of in any
exhaustive survey, but the accounting for them will after all amount to
nothing better than a gleaning of remnants and partial exceptions, such
as will in no material degree derange the general proposition in hand.

Again, there runs through the length and breadth of this business
community a certain measure of incompetence or inefficiency of
management, as seen from the point of view of the conceivable perfect
working of the system as a whole. It may be due to a slack attention
here and there; or to the exigencies of business strategy which may
constrain given business concerns to an occasional attitude of "watchful
waiting" in the hope of catching a rival off his guard; or to a lack of
perfect mutual understanding among the discretionary businessmen, due
sometimes to an over-careful guarding of trade secrets or advance
information; or, as also happens, and quite excusably, to a lack of
perfect mutual confidence among these businessmen, as to one another's
entire good faith or good-will. The system is after all a competitive
one, in the sense that each of the discretionary directors of business
is working for his own pecuniary gain, whether in cooperation with his
fellows or not. "An honest man will bear watching." As in other
collusive organisations for gain, confederates are apt to fall out when
it comes to a division of what is in hand. In one way and another the
system is beset with inherent infirmities, which hinder its perfect
work;