32 Social Environment 



erty might ride down the propertyless like a 

 giant fighting among pygmies; no matter, 

 there had been discovered in the balance of 

 forces the operation of a universal natural law, 

 the law of supply and demand. This law, it 

 was assumed, presided like a divinity over the 

 struggle and insured impartial justice to all. 



It was the discovery of the universal opera- 

 tion of the law of supply and demand under 

 unchecked capitalism that so fascinated the 

 men of the laissez-faire epoch. Recently 

 liberated from the rule of personal authority 

 in church and state, they felt the inspiration 

 of what appeared to be a new justice and a 

 new freedom, founded on immutable principles 

 instead of on the whims of personal rulers. 

 Henceforth there was to be a reign of law, 

 not a reign of persons or classes. So fasci- 

 nated with their beautiful theory were they 

 that they refused to see the concrete facts of 

 the tyrannical rule of the moneyed classes in 

 the factory. 



The illusion of impartial law in the market 

 was, under the circumstances, a natural and 

 unavoidable one. Seen in perspective after a 

 fuller experience with laissez-faire ideas, we 

 can today easily point out its fallacies. On 



