The Industrial Revolution has come to the New York Stock Exchange - only 250 years after it hit the rest of the western world. The merger between the NYSE and Archipelago is creating a wedge between those doing the work of the exchange, that is, the floor traders and their support staff, and the owners, that is, the members who own seats.

This is not dissimilar to what happened in the earlier social revolution, when the ranks of blacksmiths, for example, were divided into those who owned tools and organised workflow in machine shops, and those who became their employees.