The Theory of Social Revolutions | Page 5

have the judges even yet, after a
generation of revolt and of legislation, altogether abandoned this
doctrine.
The courts--reluctantly, it is true, and principally at the instigation of
the railways themselves, who found the practice unprofitable--have

latterly discountenanced discrimination as to persons, but they still
uphold discrimination as to localities.[3] Now, among abuses of
sovereign power, this is one of the most galling, for of all taxes the
transportation tax is perhaps that which is most searching, most
insidious, and, when misused, most destructive. The price paid for
transportation is not so essential to the public welfare as its equality; for
neither persons nor localities can prosper when the necessaries of life
cost them more than they cost their competitors. In towns, no cup of
water can be drunk, no crust of bread eaten, no garment worn, which
has not paid the transportation tax, and the farmer's crops must rot upon
his land, if other farmers pay enough less than he to exclude him from
markets toward which they all stand in a position otherwise equal. Yet
this formidable power has been usurped by private persons who have
used it purely selfishly, as no legitimate sovereign could have used it,
and by persons who have indignantly denounced all attempts to hold
them accountable, as an infringement of their constitutional rights.
Obviously, capital cannot assume the position of an irresponsible
sovereign, living in a sphere beyond the domain of law, without
inviting the fate which has awaited all sovereigns who have denied or
abused their trust.
The operation of the New York Clearing-House is another example of
the acquisition of sovereign power by irresponsible private persons.
Primarily, of course, a clearing-house is an innocent institution
occupied with adjusting balances between banks, and has no relation to
the volume of the currency. Furthermore, among all highly centralized
nations, the regulation of the currency is one of the most jealously
guarded of the prerogatives of sovereignty, because all values hinge
upon the relation which the volume of the currency bears to the volume
of trade. Yet, as everybody knows, in moments of financial panic, the
handful of financiers who, directly or indirectly, govern the
Clearing-House, have it in their power either to expand or to contract
the currency, by issuing or by withdrawing Clearing-House certificates,
more effectually perhaps than if they controlled the Treasury of the
United States. Nor does this power, vast as it is, at all represent the
supremacy which a few bankers enjoy over values, because of their
facilities for manipulating the currency and, with the currency, credit;

facilities, which are used or abused entirely beyond the reach of the
law.
Bankers, at their conventions and through the press, are wont to
denounce the American monetary system, and without doubt all that
they say, and much more that they do not say, is true; and yet I should
suppose that there could be little doubt that American financiers might,
after the panic of 1893, and before the administration of Mr. Taft, have
obtained from Congress, at most sessions, very reasonable legislation,
had they first agreed upon the reforms they demanded, and, secondly,
manifested their readiness, as a condition precedent to such reforms, to
submit to effective government supervision in those departments of
their business which relate to the inflation or depression of values.
They have shown little inclination to submit to restraint in these
particulars, nor, perhaps, is their reluctance surprising, for the
possession by a very small favored class of the unquestioned privilege,
whether actually used or not, at recurring intervals, of subjecting the
debtor class to such pressure as the creditor may think necessary, in
order to force the debtor to surrender his property to the creditor at the
creditor's price, is a wonder beside which Aladdin's lamp burns dim.
As I have already remarked, I apprehend that sovereignty is a variable
quantity of administrative energy, which, in civilizations which we call
advancing, tends to accumulate with a rapidity proportionate to the
acceleration of movement. That is to say, the community, as it
consolidates, finds it essential to its safety to withdraw, more or less
completely, from individuals, and to monopolize, more or less strictly,
itself, a great variety of functions. At one stage of civilization the head
of the family administers justice, maintains an armed force for war or
police, wages war, makes treaties of peace, coins money, and, not
infrequently, wears a crown, usually of a form to indicate his
importance in a hierarchy. At a later stage of civilization, companies of
traders play a great part. Such aggregations of private and irresponsible
adventurers have invaded and conquered empires, founded colonies,
and administered justice to millions of human beings. In our own time,
we have seen the assumption of many of the functions of these and
similar private