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cisely like the American. It used its deposits to buy outright sharesin industrial and utility corporations. It was a combination bank andinvestment company. As these banks accumulated vast blocks ofshares they became in fact holding companies. As banks amalgamated,their power over industry widened, and their capacity tocontrol and plan it was increased. The German states also ownedmines, forests, railroads, power plants, utilities, industrial enterprises.Thus the whole fabric of German enterprise was enmeshed innumerous mechanisms of control—some by the state, some by banks,some by cartels.Labor, of course, subjected industry to its controls through organizedpressure. In Germany, as in Italy, labor and socialism wereclosely intertwined. And here, too, socialists were deeply implicatedin the doctrines of syndicalism. The official party program did notcountenance it but, just as in Italy and France, the idea of thesyndicalist society as distinguished from state socialism was makingheadway among the rank and file of the party. In substance the syndicalistbelieved what the cartelists believed—that the industrialgroup must be subjected to government and to government of theproducers. The cartelists looked upon the employers as the producers;the syndicalists looked upon the workers as the producers. Bothshied away from government of industry by the state; both believedin self-government in industry. But were they, in fact, so irrevocablyfar apart? "What was the owner interested in? The securityof his investment, the permanence of his profits, continuous operationfree from depressions, protection from excessive productionand cutthroat competition. What was the worker primarily interestedin? The security of his job, the permanence of his employment,and a full share in the product of his labor. Both believedthat the producing industry should be a monopoly. Was it whollyunthinkable that men who held these views among employers andworkers, under stress of calamitous economic disturbances, mightnot find a common meeting ground?This suspicion was making its way into the minds of a good manyradicals—socialists or syndicalists—who, tiring of their bleak proletariansocialist dreams, began to toy with the idea of adapting thedoctrines of syndicalism to the capitalist system. This, perhaps, isno