Neither group had imagined the results of their combined success. On the one hand, they had created an economy of undeniable productivity and an industrial infrastructure continental in scale, but this economy had not produced the republican society they desired. Contract freedom had yielded a world of dependence and wage labor rather than independence. Competition had yielded a chaotic economy of boom and bust and surplus production that markets could not absorb. Businessmen sought to escape competition, and failing that, to control costs. This created a relentless downward pressure on wages,
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