guaranteed, and perpetuated by the very mechanism of production."[1]
When we reach the last historical stage, the action of independent wills disappears, and the whole of society resembles an organised body, working automatically; observers can then establish an economic science which appears to them as exact as the sciences of physical nature. The error of many economists consisted in their ignorance of the fact that this system, which seemed natural or primitive to them,[2] is the result of a series of transformations which might not have taken place, and always remains a very unstable structure, for it could be destroyed by force, as it had been created by the intervention of force; moreover, contemporary economic literature is full of complaints respecting the intervention of the State, which has thereby upset natural laws.
Nowadays economists are little disposed to believe that these natural laws are in reality laws of Nature; they are well aware that the capitalist system was reached but slowly, but they consider that it was reached by a progress which should enchant the minds of all enlightened men. This progress, in fact, is demonstrated by three remarkable facts: it has become possible to set up a science of economics; laws can be stated in the simplest, surest, and most elegant formulas, since the law of contract dominates every country of advanced capitalism;[3] the caprices of the rulers of the State are no longer so apparent, and thus the path towards liberty is open. Any return
- ↑ Capital, tome i. p. 327, col. 1.
- ↑ Natural, in the Marxian sense, is that which resembles a physical movement as opposed to the idea of creation by an intelligent will; for the deists of the eighteenth century, natural was that which had been created by God, and which was both primitive and excellent; this is still, it seems, the view of G. de Molinari.
- ↑ In a very advanced capitalist régime questions of agricultural rights, women's dowries, the division of landed property go into the background; the first place is occupied by commercial associations, bills of exchange, sale of stocks and shares, etc.
