in the towns, reduce thousands of beings to the state of starvelings, and impose industrial slavery.
And it is these miserable wrecks of ancient guilds, these organisms mangled and oppressed by the State, that "scientific" economists have the ignorance to confound with the guilds of the Middle Ages! What the great Revolution swept away as harmful to industry was not the guild, or even the trade union; it was a piece of machinery both useless and harmful. *********
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History has not been an uninterrupted evolution. At different intervals evolution has been broken in a certain region, to begin again elsewhere. Egypt, Asia, the banks of the Mediterranean, Central Europe have in turn been the scene of historical developments. But, in every case, the first phase of the evolution has been the primitive tribe, passing on into a village commune, then into the free city, and finally dying out when it reaches the phase of the State.
In Egypt, civilization began by the primitive tribe. It reached the village community phasis, and later on the period of free cities; still later that of the State, which, after a flourishing period, resulted in the death of the country. The evolution began again in Assyria, in Persia, in Palestine. Again it traversed the same path: the tribe, the village community, the free city, the all-powerful State; and finally the result was—death!
A new civilization then sprang up in Greece. Always beginning by the tribe, it slowly reached the village commune, then the period of republican cities. In these cities, civilization reached its highest summits. But the East brought to them its poisoned breath, its traditions of despotism. Wars and conquests created Alexander's empire of Macedonia. The State enthroned itself, killed all civilization, and then came—death!
Rome in its turn restored civilization. Again we find the primitive tribe at its origin, then the village commune, then
