Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/832

 8l6 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

so did industry centralize with it. The absolute monarch was private proprietor, not only of the land and vassals, but also of all the slaves and serfs belonging to the latter. Centralization was political, not industrial. Consequently in the later develop- ment of the state whereby subordinate classes gained partner- ship with the monarch and introduced order and right into coercion, the rights acquired were not peculiarly industrial, but primarily political. Freedom of labor is a political privilege. The right of free industry is the right to be free from govern- mental obstructions in the way of setting up an independent establishment and buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest. The right of free movement and free employment is the right to be free from arbitrary political obstruction in seek- ing employment. The right of property is the right of every individual, regardless of rank, learning, political influence, or other obstruction, to get and keep such property as he can. These are all primarily political privileges, and consist in the removal of those restrictions which the rulers had imposed directl}' on individuals and classes.

It is often asserted that slavery and serfdom disappeared, not because of state prohibition, but primarily through the economic fact of the wastefulness of coerced labor in competition with voluntary labor. This view is undoubtedly true. As already stated, only when useful objects, be they tools, animals, women, men, land, saints' relics, or public franchises, come to be recog- nized as scarce with reference to the existing density and vol- ume of population, does their significance for self and their capacity for coercion rise into consciousness with sufficient clearness to invite men to appropriate them as private property. And when the increasing population and wealth production have transferred scarcity to other factors, then is the motive for appropriation also transferred. But while this may cause the disappearance of slavery and serfdom, it is noi enough to bring about the positive rights of freedom. Economic causes alone would abolish serfdom, but would not prevent the substitution of a caste system like that of India. It required the positive inter- ference of the state in the creation of legal rights, such as free