shortened, and a long step be made toward that state of things in which
two employers offer work to one employé. And, legal and social forces no
longer irresistibly opposed to the wage-workers, thenceforth wages would
advance. At every stage they would tend to the maximum possible under
the improved conditions. In the end, under fully equal conditions,
everywhere, for all classes, the producer would gather to himself the
full product of his labor.

The average business man, too, of the city of our illustration, himself
a producer--that is, a help to the consumer--would under the better
conditions reap new opportunities. Far less than now would he fear
failure through bad debts and hard times; through the wage-workers'
larger earnings, he would obtain a larger volume of trade; he would
otherwise naturally share in the generally increased production; and he
would participate in the common benefits from the better local
government.

But the disappearance of the local monopolist would be predestined. The
owner of local franchises would already have gone. The local land
monopolist would have seen his land values diminished. In every such
case, the monopolist's loss would be the producer's gain. The aggregate
annual earnings of all the city's producers (the wage-workers, the
land-workers, and the men in productive business) would rise toward
their natural just aggregate--all production. As between the various
classes within the city, a condition approximating to justice in
political and economic arrangements would now prevail.

What would thus be likely to happen in our typical city of 50,000
inhabitants would also, in greater or less degree, be possible in all
industrial towns and cities. In every such place, self-government and