conception of liberty would in practice merely result in limiting the power of the government to control social conditions. This would not necessarily mean, however, the immunity of the individual from external control. To limit the power of the government may permit the extension over the individual of some other form of control even more irresponsible than that of the government itself-the control which inevitably results from the economic supremacy of a class who own the land and the capital.

The introduction of the factory system forced the great majority of small independent producers down into the ranks of mere wage-earners, and subjected them in their daily work to a class rule under which everything was subordinated to the controlling purpose of the employers-the desire for profits.

The significance of this change from the old handicraft system of industry to present-day capitalistic production is fully understood by all students of modern industry. Even Herbert Spencer, the great expounder of individualism, admitted that the so-called liberty of the laborer "amounts in practice to little more than the ability to exchange one slavery for another" and that "the coercion of circumstances often bears more hardly on him than the coercion of a master does on one in bondage." This dependence of the 'Principles of Sociology, Vol. III, p. 525.

laborer, however, he regarded as unfortunate, and looked forward to the gradual amelioration of present conditions through the growth of cooperation in production.

Individualism as an economic doctrine was advocated in the eighteenth century by those who believed in a larger measure of freedom for the industrial classes. The small business which was then the rule meant the wide diffusion of

economic power. A laissez faire policy would have furthered the interests of that large body of small independent producers who had but little representation in and but little influence upon the government. It would have contributed materially to the progress of the democratic movement by enlarging the sphere of industrial freedom for all independent producers. It does not follow, however, that this doctrine which served a useful purpose in connection with the eighteenth-century movement to limit the power of the ruling class is sound in view of the political and economic conditions which exist to-day. The so-called industrial revolution has accomplished sweeping and far-reaching changes in economic organization. It has resulted in a transfer of industrial power from the many to the few, who now exercise in all matters relating to production an authority as absolute and irresponsible as that which the ruling class exercised in the middle of the eighteenth century over the state itself. The

simple decentralized and more democratic system of production which formerly prevailed has thus been supplanted by a highly centralized and thoroughly oligarchic form of industrial organization. At the same time political development has been tending strongly in the direction of democracy. The few have been losing their hold upon the state, which has come to rest, in theory at least, upon the will of the many. A political transformation amounting to a revolution has placed the many in the same position in relation to the government which was formerly held by the favored few.

As a result of these political and economic changes the policy of government regulation of industry is likely to be regarded by the masses with increasing favor. A society organized as a political democracy can not be expected to tolerate an industrial aristocracy. As soon, then, as the masses come to feel that they really control the political machinery, the irresponsible power which the few now exercise in the management of industry will be limited or destroyed as it has already been largely overthrown in the state itself. In fact the doctrine of laissez faire no longer expresses the generally accepted view of state functions, but merely the selfish view of that relatively small class which, though it controls the industrial system, feels the reins of political control slipping out of its hands. The limitation of gov

ernmental functions which was the rallying-cry of the liberals a century ago has thus become the motto of the present-day conservative.

The opponents of government regulation of industry claim that it will retard or arrest progress by restricting the right of individual initiative. They profess to believe that the best results for society as a whole are obtained when every corporation or industrial combination is allowed to manage its business with a free hand. It is assumed by those who advocate this policy that there is no real conflict of interests between the capitalists who control the present-day aggregations of corporate wealth and the general public. No argument is needed, however, to convince any one familiar with the facts of recent industrial development that this assumption is not true.

The change in the attitude of the people toward the let-alone theory of government is, as a matter of fact, the outcome of an intelligently directed effort to enlarge and democratize—not abridge— the right of initiative in its relation to the management of industry. The right of individual initiative in the sense of the right to exercise a real control over production was lost by the masses when the substitution of machinery for tools made them directly dependent upon a class of capitalowning employers. The subsequent growth of large scale production has centralized the actual control of industry in the hands of a small class

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of large capitalists. The small capitalists as separate and independent producers are being rapidly crushed or absorbed by the great corporation. They may still belong to the capitalist class in that they live upon an income derived from the ownership of stock or bonds. But they have no real control over the business in which their capital is invested. They no longer have the power to organize and direct any part of the industrial process. They enjoy the benefits which accrue from the ownership of wealth, but they can no longer take an active part in the management of industry. For them individual initiative in the sense of an effective control over the industrial process has disappeared almost as completely as it has in the case of the mere wageearner. Individual initiative even for the capitalowning class has thus largely disappeared. It has been superseded by corporate initiative which means the extinguishment of individual initiative except in those cases where it is secured to the large capitalist through the ownership of a controlling interest in the business.

The abandonment of the laissez faire policy, then, in favor of the principle of government regulation of industry is the outgrowth, not of any hostility to individual initiative, but of the conviction that the monopoly of industrial power by the few is a serious evil. It is manifestly impossible to restore to the masses the right of indi