come to desire it because they have to, because absolutism does not work out any longer to civilized ends. Employers are not wise enough to govern their men with unlimited power, and not generous enough to be trusted with autocracy (Lippmann 59).
Lippmann finds that workers are fighting for "the beginnings of industrial self-government" (Lippmann 60).
The era Lippmann writes about is the era of big trusts, with huge companies buying up smaller companies in the same industry and so achieving a monopoly. He says that these trusts have certainly come about because of superior business sense and because of successful competition However, he says they have also used ruthless competition, underground arrangements, and similar efforts that the courts will never untangle. In any case, says Lippmann, what is important is the future of these trusts and not their past. Lippmann argues with Woodrow wilson, who believed that leaving big business alone was possible even as government could attack the trusts. For Lippmann, the two cannot be so easily disentangled, and a choice must be made between supporting big business and small (Lippmann 85). At the same time, Lippmann sees a need to support and yet control the actions of big business because it is also an important resource. he says those who would simply eliminate big business are clinging to a village mentality that is no longer sufficient:
Those who cling to the village view of life may deflect the drift, may batter the trusts about a bit, but they will never dominate business, never humanize its machinery, and they will continue to be the
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