28 Social Environment 



mistakable terms. The declaration of human 

 equality and the rights to life, liberty, and the 

 pursuit of happiness — more explicitly rendered 

 in later versions as the pursuit of property 

 — was the epitome of the newer commer- 

 cialism. It, of course, contemplated no real 

 check upon existing aristocracy so far as it was 

 based upon property, though in a new country 

 with plenty of cheap land it did offer the poor 

 a chance to climb into that aristocracy during 

 the process of the country's growth to matu- 

 rity — an opportunity that has been enthusias- 

 tically embraced. 



5. Laissez Faire 



The social philosophy thus developing in 

 England and America, and, in fact, wherever 

 the influence of the industrial revolution was 

 spreading, is generally referred to as the doc- 

 trine of laissez faire. According to this doc- 

 trine the function of government was to be 

 little more than the keeping of the peace, while 

 in the industrial processes people freely com- 

 peted for power in the form of property. Thus 

 civil government, though theoretically retain- 

 ing sovereignty, was to be pushed aside in 

 favor of capital as the social directive agency. 



