FROM FREEDOM TO BONDAGE. 725 



selves by labor, bodily or mental, and must either exert them- 

 selves of their own unconstrained wills, prompted only by 

 thoughts of naturally-resulting evils or benefits, or must exert 

 themselves with constrained wills, prompted by thoughts of evils 

 and benefits artificially resulting. 



Men may work together in a society under either of these two 

 forms of control : forms which, though in many cases mingled, 

 are essentially contrasted. Using the word co-operation in its 

 wide sense, and not in that restricted sense now commonly given 

 to it, we may say that social life must be carried on by either vol- 

 untary co-operation or compulsory co-operation; or, to use Sir 

 Henry Maine's words, the system must be that of contract or that 

 of status that in which the individual is left to do the best he 

 can by his spontaneous efforts and get success or failure accord- 

 ing to his efficiency, and that in which he has his appointed place, 

 works under coercive rule, and has his apportioned share of food, 

 clothing, and shelter. 



The system of voluntary co-operation is that by which, in civ- 

 ilized societies, industry is now everywhere carried on. Under a 

 simple form we have it on every farm, where the laborers, paid by 

 the farmer himself and taking orders directly from him, are free 

 to stay or go as they please. And of its more complex form an 

 example is yielded by every manufacturing concern, in which, 

 under partners, come clerks and managers, and under these, time- 

 keepers and over-lookers, and under these operatives of different 

 grades. In each of these cases there is an obvious working to- 

 gether, or co-operation, of employer and employed, to obtain in 

 one case a crop and in the other case a manufactured stock. And 

 then, at the same time, there is a far more extensive, though un- 

 conscious, co-operation with other workers of all grades through- 

 out the society. For while these particular employers and em- 

 ployed are severally occupied with their special kinds of work, 

 other employers and employed are making other things needed 

 for the carrying on of their lives as well as the lives of all others. 

 This voluntary co-operation, from its simplest to its most complex 

 forms, has the common trait that those concerned work together 

 by consent. There is no one to force terms or to force acceptance. 

 It is perfectly true that in many cases an employer may give, 

 or an employe' may accept, with reluctance : circumstances he 

 says compel him. But what are the circumstances ? In the one 

 case there are goods ordered, or a contract entered into, which he 

 can not supply or execute without yielding ; and in the other case 

 he submits to a wage less than he likes because otherwise he will 

 have no money wherewith to procure food and warmth. The gen- 

 eral formula is not " Do this, or I will make you " ; but it is 

 " Do this, or leave your place and take the consequences." 



