Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/834

 8l8 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

develop toward monopoly and centralization by means of its own indirect coercion, the privative sanctions. This develop- ment took successively two forms, the guild and the corporation. First, as to the guilds. Along with the freedom of labor which resulted from economic and legal changes went the growth of absolutism ; and the monarch, in order to strengthen himself against his nobility, introduced what may be called the democrati- zation of property. The fact and concept of property originated as the possession of a narrow and aristocratic class. Serfs, slaves, and subordinates were not considered as capable of holding property in their own right. The mediaeval guilds of merchants and manufacturers, having their origin in the necessity of asso- ciation on the part of the newly freed serfs, and gradually gaining through their organization a recognition from the king, secured from the latter for each of their members the right of private property in tools, lands, and family. This democratization con- sisted simply in the right to buy, sell, and give their own tools and lands in trade and their daughters in marriage, just as the feudal lords did with their property.

These guilds, originating as the voluntary associations of free men, secured in time, through the further growth and stengthening of their organization, the exclusive jurisdiction, not only of commerce and manufactures, but also of local gov- ernment, within their respective areas, as well as a share in the national government. The last came about as follows : Their delegates or headmen, from time to time, met in national con- vention, or went as a lobby to the meetings of the king and his grand council, in order to secure special privileges for their members. This convention or lobby was finally legalized and incorporated with delegates from the smaller landowners, and became a branch of the state, the house of commons. The guilds themselves in their local areas were granted again and again certain sovereign prerogatives — the right to tax them- selves, to appoint and name the governmental officers in the locality, to adopt and enforce ordinances. Gradually by this process of legalization they became intrinsic parts of the struc- ture of sovereignty. The sovereign merely took those forms