Note 99 — Chapter V
Reading edition
A factor of tremendous importance in the maintenance of petty industries and business establishments in this country, which Marx could not have anticipated, has been the unprecedented volume of foreign immigration. Not only have some menial personal services—such as shoe cleaning, for example—been transformed into regular businesses by immigrants from certain countries, but the massing together of immigrants, aliens in language, customs, tastes, and manners, provides a very favorable soil for the development of small business enterprises.