1 8 Social Environment 



ness with great changes in the material condi- 

 tions of Hfe, yet with no very revolutionary 

 changes, after all, in motives and principles. 

 Slavery and serfdom have disappeared, it is 

 true, but they have disappeared partly because 

 they were less profitable than the wage system 

 that supplanted them. Feudal property, on 

 which the aristocracies of former times rested, 

 has been transformed into the specialized in- 

 dustrial equipment of land and machinery now 

 covered by the general term capital; but in its 

 new form it still continues practically the same 

 relative distribution of wealth and power, and 

 still supports wasteful luxury out of under- 

 paid toil. 



Equality before the law has in a measure 

 been attained, but as a result the worker has 

 lost the slight refuge of status that once was 

 his, and in practice the right of the weak to 

 compete on equal terms with his betters has 

 not proved wholly a blessing. Political democ- 

 racy has bestowed an influence in government 

 upon the masses, but at the same time busi- 

 ness has grown into a new feudalism, with 

 hereditary privileged classes, that practically 

 dictates the conditions of working life. Rapid 

 communication has brought the nations closer 



