The pamphlet herewith presented is a document of enduring quality. Obviously the fact that, first and foremost, the conditions depicted not only have held good in later years, but that the argument presented has gained in potency by a further development of the conditions affecting the life of the working class along the lines indicated in the document. Indeed, such is today the lay of the land in capitalist society, that a general feeling of apprehension as to what the future may bring runs through the mass of the workers. More or less clearly in some minds, dimly in others, the impression is sinking in that we are passing through and are in the midst of a period of industrial revolution, a period where all that was thought permanent is being upset.
Nothing is as it has been, and both men and things are in a state of rapid flux.
The feeling of economic security is vanishing. It has been said that formerly it was the function of industry to supply customers with goods, but that now it has become the function of frenzied sales departments to supply goods with customers. Nobody, barring the few top capitalists, feels secure, and the feeling that a social change is impending is taking hold of many minds. The great facts of present industry are the displacement of human skill by machines and the increase of capitalist power through concentration in the possession of the tools with which wealth is produced and distributed. One-quarter of a century has since dipped into the ocean of time.