836 THE DEPENDENT GROUP 



With an insight into this connection of the matter there begins 

 a new conception of social and economic events. We hear at the 

 close of the eighteenth century of the great doctrine of individual 

 freedom. All legal obstacles which set bounds to this movement 

 must fall. It is taught that, as soon as every one has liberty to 

 unfold his own powers, the greatest possible guaranty of universal 

 prosperity is attained. But the new economic development which, 

 under the banner of steam and electricity, leads the way to a new 

 era of discovery and invention, in reality created colossal riches on 

 the one hand, and appalling poverty on the other. Poverty is not 

 removed, but increased, and in its opposition to riches appears still 

 sharper and more pressing. Man's ability to work has become an 

 article of sale, which, according to the law of supply and demand, 

 displays a tendency toward continuous depreciation as population 

 increases. So economic freedom becomes the freedom of " sweating," 

 which receives only the slightest check from the good will of phil- 

 anthropists. The immense pressure from above calls forth the 

 counter-pressure from below. As their feeling of self-consciousness 

 develops, the laboring classes seek to realize themselves as a unity, 

 and in their wishes, needs, and point of view to oppose themselves 

 to the employing class. One can speak of this movement among the 

 laboring classes as something quite new in the history of sociology 

 and of the world. This does not mean that there ever was a time 

 when the struggle of the impoverished classes to improve their social 

 and economic condition had no existence. But no movement has 

 seized hold of such great masses of people. First of all, the modern 

 means of communication and the press, together with a universal 

 political freedom which has, in spite of every obstacle, made great 

 advances, have been the powers which have given that solidarity to 

 modern labor which is its peculiar characteristic. This movement 

 of labor to realize itself as a great unity gives rise to the modern social 

 problem of which the problem of poverty forms a part. As a part of 

 the social problem it assumes a new aspect. The conception of poor- 

 relief, in the old sense of the term, is entirely foreign to the labor 

 programme, the first principle of which is self-help; not pity, but 

 justice; not a prayer, but a claim. 



This social conception of the problem increases the difficulty of 

 treating it, because the attention is now directed away from the 

 outer appearance of poverty to its deep-lying cause, and the trouble 

 now is to find those measures through which the cause of poverty 

 may be counteracted. We are accustomed to classify the causes 

 of poverty as " general " and " particular." The former comprise 

 events over which the individual has no influence, such as the whole 

 organization of state and society, business crises, wars, discoveries, 

 and inventions which revolutionize a whole branch of industry, such 



