Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/809

 THE LABOR QUESTION AND THE SOCIAL PROBLEM 779

much confusion (as might, indeed, be expected) in the discus- sion of remedies for or solutions of the so-called labor question as there is in the efforts to formulate the question itself.

To what conclusion are we driven?

Gambetta once said: "There is no social question." He meant that while there were many social questions, it was idle to attempt to discover a common origin for them, to view them as subdivisions of one general and fundamental question. The truth is, there is a social question or problem, and the numerous branches of it cannot even be adequately studied without a proper comprehension of that larger and deeper question.

That question concerns the organization of industry as well as the determination of the conditions under which industry shall be carried on by labor and capital. And the question is mani- festly a sociological one, since it has economic, political, and social aspects. What is called rather vaguely "economic jus- tice" is a shorthand way of expressing the idea of economic relations under a regime of equal opportunity and the greatest amount of personal liberty compatible with social security, sta- bility, and harmony. In other words, economic justice really presupposes political justice. When we speak of contracts, sup- ply, demand, bargaining, etc., we imply that certain conditions exist in society, that such "low forms of competition" as mur- der, violence, robbery, duress, have been suppressed, and that individual liberty is not an empty term signifying nothing. Clas- sical economists advocated taissez~/aire-ism, but the laissez-faire policy may be grossly unjust. Buccaneers may wish to be let alone after securing their booty. The privileged classes in France wished to be let alone when their abuses were driving the masses into revolt and revolution. No one, not even the most stubborn British Tory, is demanding a laissez-faire policy for Ire- land. Mr. Spencer's treatment of the perplexing land problem shows the futility of trying to realize justice without rectifying past wrong and error. He who says that he favors individualism must declare under what economic and political conditions he proposes to place the individual.

We shall solve the labor question when sociology shall have