ABSTRACT
No living being can be happy or even exist unless his needs are sufficiently proportioned to his means. In other words, if his needs require more than can be granted, or even merely something of a different sort, they will be under continual friction and can only function painfully, Movements incapable of production without pain fend not to be reproduced. Economic progress has mainly consisted in freeing industrial relations from all regulation. It was the function of a whole system of moral forces to exert this discipline. Actually, religion has lost most of its power. And government, instead of regulating economic life, has become its tool and servant. The most opposite schools, orthodox economists and extreme socialists, unite to reduce government to the role of a more or less passive intermediary among the various social functions.
