Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/849

 must rather use all the energy remaining to protect the still surviving form against internal and external dangers. That rigid exclusion of new associates, which later characterizes the outlived Zunft organizations, signified immediately, therefore, that the group was confirming its stability by the exclusion which confined it to its once acquired members and their descendants. It signified still further, however, an avoidance of those reconstructions which are necessary with every quantitative extension of the group, modifications for which a structure that has outlasted its usefulness has no longer the requisite strength. The instinct of self-preservation will consequently lead such a group to measures of rigid conservatism. In general, structures that are unfit for competition will incline to these means, for in the degree in which their form is variable, in which it passes through different stages and accomplishes new adaptations, occasion is given to competitors for dangerous attacks. The most assailable stage for societies as for individuals is that between two periods of adjustment. Whoever is in motion cannot at every moment be so guarded on all sides as he may be who is in a position of stability and repose. A group which has a feeling of insecurity with reference to its competitors will on that account for the sake of its self-preservation avoid all variation, and will live in accordance with the principle quieta non movere.

This rigid self-limitation is especially to the purpose whenever competition is not yet present, but the aim is to prevent its appearance, because of conscious inability to cope with it. Rigorous measures of exclusion alone will in this case maintain the status, because if new relationships arise, if new points of connection with parties outside the group are offered, the group will be drawn into a wider sphere, in which it might encounter competition that could not be overcome. This sociological norm may be operative very widely in the following connection. An irredeemable paper currency has the peculiarity, in contrast with redeemable paper money, that it circulates only within the territory of the government that issues it, and cannot be exported. This is proclaimed as its greatest advantage. It