Documenti ispano-genovesi dell'Archivio di Simancas

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 176352146X

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-145495

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Documenti ispano-genovesi dell'Archivio di Simancas

Place of publication:: Genova

Publisher:: Co' tipi del R.I. de' Sordo-Muti

Year of publication:: 1868

Scope:: 291 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Documento LXVIII. Lettera di Andrea D' Oria al Principe Filippo. 1547, 4. febbraio

Collection:: Economics Books

XXIV INTRO D UCTION. tion of certain fixed duties. The commune was far more than a mere political division of the territory. It was an economic institution administered by those who constituted it In the towns, his trade guild was to the handicraftsman what the commune was to the peasant ; it assured him work, a market, and the means of making his living. The administra tion of their joint interests, their social gatherings, and their festivals formed a strong bond of union among workers of the same trade. For them also “ their to-morrow ” was assured. In the city as in the country the producer retained in his own hands the instruments of production. It was labour that then owned capital. Such a thing did not then exist as a mere wage-earner, a man without bonds of interest either with his fellow-workmen or with the land, without guarantee or security of any kind, living from day to day on what capital might grant him. To day this is the typical form under which labour, the principal factor of production, appears. In short, while formerly the condition of those whose arms create all wealth was guaranteed by custom, it depends to-day on the fluctuations of the market and on the force of competi tion, that is to say, in appearance at least, on the will of landowners and capitalists. We live under the régime of complete freedom of contract ; but in every contract, he who supplies that which is essential to a man to live by labour, namely, the land and the capital, will dictate the terms of the bargain and will cause rent to be brought to a maximum and wages to a minimum. Now that all those traditional and customary barriers, which once protected the weak and helpless, have fallen, the Darwinian law of the “ struggle for existence ” reigns supreme in the economic world. The strongest wins the day, and the strongest, in this case, means the richest. Now if we consider the changes which industrial progress has introduced among social conditions, we see that the same economic influences which make men more equal, create, at the same time, an antagonism between master and workmen, and that thus the causes which bring about the triumph of

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