onsent to pay
so much, I shall lose the horse, which is to me worth more than the
money"; and the seller says to himself on the other hand, "If I do not
consent to accept so little, I shall lose the money, which is to me
worth more than the horse." Each bases his argument on a conscious or
subconscious reference to the situation which will arise if the bargain
is not concluded. Similarly, when any nation submits to a foreign rule,
and forbears to revolt though it feels that rule distasteful, it
forbears because, either consciously or subconsciously, it feels that
the existing situation, whatever its drawbacks, is preferable to that
which would arise from any violent attempt to change it. The same thing
holds good of the labouring classes as a whole, as related to those
classes who, in the modern world, direct them. By implication, if not
consciously, they are partners to a certain bargain. They are not
partners to a bargain because they consent to labour, for there is no
bargaining with necessity; and they would have to labour in any case, if
they wished to remain alive. They are partners to a bargain because they
consent to labour under the direction of other people. It is true that,
as regards the present and the near future, they are confronted by
necessity even here. This is obviously true of countries such as Great
Britain, in which, if the labour of the many were not elaborately
organised by the few, three-fourths of the present population would be
unable to obtain bread. Nevertheless, if we take a wider view of
affairs, and consider what, without violating possibility, might
conceivably take place in the course of a few disastrous centuries, the
mass of modern labourers might gradually secede from the position which
they at present occupy, and, spreading themselves in families or small
industrial groups over the vast agricultural areas which still remain
unoccupied, might keep themselves alive by labouring under their own
direction, as men have done in earlier ages, and as savages do still.
They would have, on the whole, to labour far harder than they do now,
and to labour for a reward which, on the whole, would be incomparably
less than that which is attainable to-day by all labour except the
lowest. Moreover, their condition would have all the "instability"
which, as Spencer rightly says, is inseparable from "the homogeneous."
It could not last. Still, while it lasted, they could live; and, in
theory, at all eve