Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/597

 THE AMERICAN

JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

VOLUME VIII MARCH, IQ03 NUMBERS

INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. II. 1

PART III. GENERAL STRUCTURE OF SOCIETIES. CHAPTER II. THE ANTECEDENTS OF SOCIOLOGY.

BETWEEN 1815 and 1830 A. Loria, in his excellent book Les bases tconomiques de la constitution sociale, wrote that, with the mechanical progress of industry and under the protection of a somewhat peaceful regime, a revolution, both economic and political, was taking place, characterized by the concentration of movable wealth ; that in almost the whole of Europe a division of capitalistic power between agriculture, on the one hand, and trade and manufacture, on the other, coincided with a corre- sponding division of political power between the conservative party and the liberal party. We may accept the description of this phenomenon in its main outlines. Marx has also stated it, placing it in a more remote period, and, in reality, it appears in the most ancient civilizations, although under partly different conditions. In fact, the error of Marx and Loria is in not having observed that from remotest antiquity even the minor civilizations have passed through an analogous evolution, which, however, was different in secondary points, and less extended.

This economic and political concentration and differentiation had at that time (as always 2 ) as its consequence, as a true reflex action, the concentration of the industrial laboring forces, on the

1 Translated by Robert Morris.

See my studies on the ancient civilizations : Peru, Mexico, Egypt, India, China, Iran, Persia, and Greece.

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