Page:The vested interests and the state of the industrial arts - ("the modern point of view and the new order") (IA vestedinterestss00vebliala).pdf/170



the eighteenth century certain principles of enlightened common sense were thrown into formal shape and adopted by the civilised peoples of that time to govern the system of law and order, use and went, under which they chose to live. So far as concerns economic relations the principles which so became incorporated into the system of civilised law and custom at that time were the principles of equal opportunity, self-determination, and self-help. Chief among the specific rights by which this civilised scheme of equal opportunity and self-help were to be safeguarded were the rights of free contract and security of property. These make up the substantial core of that system of principles which is called the modern point of view, in so far as concerns trade, industry, investment, credit obligations, and whatever else may properly be spoken of as economic institutions, And these still stand over today, paramount among the inalienable rights of all free citizens in all free countries; they are the groundwork of the economic system as it runs today, and this existing system can undergo no material change of character so long as these paramount rights of civilised men continue to be inalienable.