A democracy has as much interest in regulating for
its own benefit the distribution of economic power as it has the
distribution of political power, and the consequences of ignoring this
interest would be as fatal in one case as in the other. In both
instances regulation in the democratic interest is as far as possible
from meaning the annihilation of individual liberty; but in both
instances individual liberty should be subjected to conditions which
will continue to keep it efficient and generally serviceable. Individual
economic power is not any more dangerous than individual political
power--provided it is not held too absolutely and for too long a time.
But in both cases the interest of the community as a whole should be
dominant; and the interest of the whole community demands a considerable
concentration of economic power and responsibility, but only for the
ultimate purpose of its more efficient exercise and the better
distribution of its fruits.
That certain existing American fortunes have in their making been of the
utmost benefit to the whole economic organism is to my mind
unquestionably the fact.
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