Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/736

 720 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

social system which has its basis in the unity of language, thought, and moral ideas ; its support in the unity of customs, law, and the commercial organization" (p. 58).

In connection with division of labor the formation of social classes is both a consequence and a concomitant. This phenom- enon is not to be traced primarily to differences in possessions, since this is an effect of a primary cause the difference in power of adaptation. On the contrary, "the first accumula- tion of property and the incipient inequality of its distribution is to be ascribed only to division of labor, to the formation of classes, and to the superior productive capacity of certain persons and occupations (p. 86).

The formation of classes does not progress incessantly. Social classes are formed rather in certain epochs, of which Schmoller asserts that in them "differentiation predominates over integration" (p. 74). Further, according to Schmoller, these classes constituting groups on the basis of natural differ- ences are in normal conditions not in conflict with each other. On the contrary, "the culture of society rests in morally and legally ordered conditions of peace, which have their roots in a psychical community. Social conflicts are disturbances of this community. They arise in case of sudden and powerful increase of differentiation, when the bonds of community are too weak, when legal and moral ordering of the newly orig- inated division of labor and of possessions is either not yet established or has ceased to be effective" (p. 99). The struggle of oppressed classes against their oppressors does not break out, however, when the pressure is severest, "but precisely in periods - of improvement in their condition it is the aristocracy among the oppressed who give the signal for war" (p. 101). We might express the gist of these conclusions of Schmoller in a propo- sition which occurs elsewhere: "The higher civilizations will necessarily produce a shifting variation of forms of employ- ment, not a uniformity in the sense of mere state action or mere individual action" (Preuss. Jahrbiicher, 1892, p. 471).

For all these conclusions Schmoller has practically omitted