direction in any earlier period. A century ago two men might have worked side by side at a loom; one might have been a man of the highest industrial talent, and the other lazy and inefficient; but the utmost difference of position to which they could attain, aside from vice or crime, was measured by the distance between a good and a bad hand-weaver. To-day the first would probably become a master of industry, a capitalist, and a millionaire, while the second might not be as well off now as then. The possible difference between them has therefore undergone an enormous widening. Napoleon and a private soldier were equal when each carried a gun in the ranks; but if each were put in command of a hundred thousand men, one would lead his army to slaughter, and the other would conquer a world with his.
In the case, however, of a modern captain of industry, a new natural monopoly has come in to take the place of the one which has been broken down—it is an interesting and instructive illustration of the constant recurrence of the monopoly principle. The master of industry has a monopoly in talent. He possesses the organizing and executive talent which is one of the rarest abilities that men ever possess, and the one talent which in our day, when industry is organized on a world-wide scale, on impersonal and automatic relations, is worth more than any other industrial factor. The men who have this talent are the ones on whom we all depend. There are millions of us who can do what we are told to do, but without the competent leadership of the masters of industry we should be as badly off as a great army of willing soldiers going into battle without competent generals. The executive talent is a natural monopoly; it has to be exploited under the methods of monopoly.
