Page:What Social Classes Owe to Each Other.djvu/91

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OWE TO EACH OTHER.
87

paid by fees are workers by the piece. To the capital in existence all must come for their subsistence and their tools.

Association is the lowest and simplest mode of attaining accord and concord between men. It is now the mode best suited to the condition and chances of employés. Employers formerly made use of guilds to secure common action for a common interest. They have given up this mode of union because it has been superseded by better ones. Correspondence, travel, newspapers, circulars, and telegrams bring to employers and capitalists the information which they need for the defence of their interests. The combination between them is automatic and instinctive. It is not formal and regulated by rule. It is all the stronger on that account, because intelligent men, holding the same general maxims of policy, and obtaining the same information, pursue similar lines of action, while retaining all the ease, freedom, and elasticity of personal independence.

At present employés have not the leisure necessary for the higher modes of communication. Capital is also necessary to establish the ties of common action under the higher