The economists have taught in so many ways the dependence of civilization upon division of labor that their failure to reach this larger perception is remarkable. The fundamental assumption upon which civilized society rests is that each member of society is doing something to make the general conditions of life easier for society as a whole. If there were no such thing as society this would not be the case. If the world were divided up among a population of hermits, each home would practically be a world by itself, having nothing to do with other homes. Since the world is the home of people who have complicated dealings with each other, it has come to pass that each gets tolerated by the other in seeking his own personal ends solely upon the implied condition that each will be an agent to do some sort of work for his fellows.
It has been the fashion for a long time to pour indiscriminate ridicule upon the theory of Rousseau's Social Contract, yet Rousseau started with a perfectly valid premise, viz., "Social order is a sacred right which serves us as a basis for all others. But this right does not come from nature, it is founded upon conventions."[1]
The various vagaries which Rousseau made this principle endorse should not prevent recognition of its real import. Wherever a collection of human beings begins to resolve itself into a society, the process involves a tacit agreement that some of the persons in the collection will attend to certain work needed by the society, while others will look after the remainder. If a hundred farmers should happen to buy land in the same township remote from other settlements, these farmers would sooner or later illustrate the change that has gone on with difference of detail, in the development of every civilization or part of civilization. It would be a process of division of labor resting upon a common understanding, never put into codified form, to be sure, that the farmer's work, from which a part of the community withdraw, will still be carried on by the rest; and, on the other hand, that terms of reciprocal advantage will put the work of those who cease to be farmers at the disposal of those who continue to till the soil. The smith,
- ↑ Social Contract, Bk. I., ch. i.
