enable those whose capital is insufficient to keep abreast of the latest requirements of production to remain in the field from which they are individually forced out by the march of events, by combining their several insufficient individual capitals into one sufficient to meet the new requirements; or, to enable those whose capital is sufficient to undertake independently to split up their large capitals into many small ones, each to invest in many undertakings and each undertaking to consist of many investments, instead of each taking up one of the undertakings on his own hook. In the first case it is an effort to beat fate by those vanquished in competition. It is an effort by those whom competition has forced out of the economic arena to stay in, by representation at least. In the second case it is an effort to limit the effects of competition in the future by dividing up and limiting its risks and liabilities (it should be remembered that the essence of a corporation is limited liability), and by providing a sort of mutual insurance between capitalists and capitals.
Here, therefore, is a check to the development of the capitalist system as outlined by Marx. A check which is destined to arrest or at least retard that development. The formula of centralization of wealth and of the disappearance of the middle-class evidently needs revision.
The question of the disappearance or the non-disappearance of the middle-class was complicated also by another and minor phenomenon which apparently swells the numbers of the middle-class and particularly influences the distribution of incomes. We refer to the so-called "new" or non-productive middle-class. This phenomenon is very interesting in another aspect of modern capitalism, the aspect of waste and its uses in the capitalistic system. But of that aspect of this phenomenon we shall treat later at some length. Here we are interested only in the mere fact of its existence. And we shall, therefore, merely say here that the existence of this "new" middle-class, particularly while its origin and character remained unexplained and
