In every region they were an army,
an awful army of anguish and despair. Now they have decreased to a number
so small, and are of a type so mild, that we can hardly count insanity
among our causes of unhappiness.
"We have totally eliminated chance from our economic life. There is still
a chance that a man will be tall or short in Altruria, that he will be
strong or weak, well or ill, gay or grave, happy or unhappy in love, but
none that he will be rich or poor, busy or idle, live splendidly or
meanly. These stupid and vulgar accidents of human contrivance cannot
befall us; but I shall not be able to tell you just how or why, or to
detail the process of eliminating chance. I may say, however, that it
began with the nationalization of telegraphs, expresses, railroads, mines,
and all large industries operated by stock companies. This at once struck
a fatal blow at the speculation in values, real and unreal, and at the
stock-exchange, or bourse; we had our own name for that gambler's
paradise, or gambler's hell, whose baleful influence penetrated every
branch of business.
"There were still business fluctuations as long as we had business, but
they were on a smaller and smaller scale, and with the final lapse of
business they necessarily vanished; all economic chance vanished.
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