ABSTRACT
The subject of words has always occupied philosophers as well as grammarians, poets, and critics. More recently, sociologists of knowledge and the students of linguistics have subjected it to their own forms of analysis, as have ethnographers and other anthropologists. The word slavery, at first general, narrowed in the hands of chartists, lawyers, and other rigidifiers. In the second half of the twentieth century in the United States the word more likely referred to anyone who denied the claims of blacks or minorities to compensatory treatment. Federalism was a frequent source of misunderstanding. But arguments which denied powers to the national government on the ground that they belonged to the states hardly betokened laissez faire. The conception of laissez faire required the total abstention from interference with or participation in economic processes and the restriction of political functions to narrow police powers, mainly the protection of life and property.
