164 EVOLUTION, SOCIAL AND ORGANIC 



ready carried us far in that direction. With 

 the organization of capital individual owner- 

 ship disappeared and class ownership has 

 taken its place. The struggle of the 20th 

 century is not a struggle between individu- 

 als, it is a struggle between classes, and so 

 Individualism has lost its meaning — it is 

 defunct. 



With the disappearance of the economic 

 foundation of Individualism, and the over- 

 throw of the philosophic superstructure erected 

 thereon, all its watchwords have lost their 

 power to charm. Free trade, free labor, free 

 contract, free competition; all these are the 

 lingering and belated echoes of a day that is 

 gone. 



"Free trade" was the protest of the rising 

 capitalist class against the trammels placed 

 upon its commerce by the feudal regime. 

 Now it appears in a new role; it is the cry 

 of the small capitalist against those "predatory 

 trusts" which discovered that competition is 

 not the life but the death of trade, and are 

 using protection to destroy their weaker fel- 

 low-robbers. 



"Free labor" was the demand of the capi- 

 talist that the serf should be released from 

 the soil in the country so that he might be 

 available for exploitation in the factory, in 



