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