Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/899

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS 883

reign of justice, and in the economic order the intervention of the law appears to be an indispensable factor. (3) The final end is cooperative association association in consumption, freeing from the yoke of middlemen ; association in credit, from that of usurers; association in production, from that of entrepreneurs. (4) Individual prop- erty is to be defended because it is an element of good which it would be imprudent to remove as a human motive. But individual property is not irreconcilable with a large development of collective property in public institutions for the common good. (5) Interest and rent on the one side, and wages on the other, with their contracts of for- feiture by one party of share in profits, should be progressively displaced by associa- tion, which would insure solidarity of interests and remove the prevailing sentiment of hostility between the two factors in production. CH. GIDE, Revue du ChrisHattisme Social, January 1897. Fr.

Professional Risk. The laws on this subject are always insufficient. It takes years to get one passed, and by that time it is useless, conditions having changed. Some general principles of law should be settled, upon the justice of which mo> zens would agree. Then the judges should be left to apply these principles to the facts in any case. Article 1382 of the civil code says: "Any act whatever which causes dam- age to other persons obliges the man by whose fault it happened to repair the damage." This would be sufficient as a general principle, but by restricting the word fault to a a narrow sense, the employer has been held free, when he could claim that the act was due to chance, or to even a momentary forgetfulness of the workman. The modern industries, so powerful are the chemical, physical and mechanical forces used that the danger is far greater than of old. The profit in them is for the employer, the work- man is no better off than of old. The employer then should bear the cost of the risk. Some industries by the nature of the chemical agents involved bring an early death to the workmen. Such industries should be forbidden by law. Were this done, inven- tion would probably devise ways to make them safe. Now there is not sufficient motive, for employers profit as things are and do not have to compensate the workers for the injury to them. Other industries are dangerous, because of the engines, machinery, etc. Accident is not certain, but possible. If accident comes through a moment's hesitation of the workman, or a misstep, or through chance, the manufac- turer is not held responsible. In railways, however, the company is held responsible. All employers should be. Even if the accident is due to a moment's imprudence or weariness, or to pure chance, to a defect in the machinery which could not be known, or to some combination of circumstances which could not be foreseen, still the work- man should be compensated ; for in placing him in abnormal and dangerous condi- tions and in exacting from him constant skill and attention one commits a primordial fault. To exact compensation would not put an end to manufacture. One accident might ruin an employer if he stood alone. But as the risk would threaten all manu- facturers, they would combine by a system of insurance pro rata to the number of work- men employed. Thus the cost would be small to each and would enter into the general expenses and be no more prohibitive of business than fire insurance is. Law should render such insurance on the employer's part obligatory. PIERRE DENIS in Revue Socialiste for October 1896. 1 r.

The Political Structure of Society. Social law is the end; political law the means, not the foundation of law, but its procedure. In the social-political organiza- tion there are two extreme points, equally necessary. On the one side is society, on the other the individual. The extreme expression of the former is collectivism, of the latter anarchy. The two forces are enfeebled each by the other, when they ought to be utilized in their full vigor. The following order of change from one extreme to the other is possible: (l) Political individualism; (2) mixture of individualism and col- lectivism, (a) empirical mixture and confusion, rational coordination without waste, (c) subordination of individual to the group ; (3) political collectivism. The political elements are primarily, like cells, undifferentiated and amorphous. Grad- ually the elements are differentiated to discharge different functions. The division of labor carries each part to the highest perfection. So we have: (l) the amorphous