THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. NOVEMBER, 1881. THE INDUSTRIAL TYPE OF SOCIETY.* BY HERBERT SPENCER. HAVING nearly always to defend themselves against external enemies, while they have to carry on internally the processes of sustentation, societies, as remarked in the last chapter, habitually present us with mixtures of the structures adapted to these diverse ends. Disentanglement is not easy. According as either structure predominates, it ramifies through the other: instance the fact that, where the militant type is much developed, the worker, ordinarily a slave, is no more a free agent than the soldier; while, where the industrial type is much developed, the soldier, volunteering on specified terms, acquires, in so far, the position of a free worker. In the one case the system of status, proper to the fighting part, pervades the working part; while, in the other, the system of contract, proper to the working part, affects the fighting part. Especially does the organization adapted to war obscure that adapted to industry. While, as we have seen, the militant type, as theoretically constructed, is so far displayed in many societies as to leave no doubt about its essential nature, the industrial type has its traits so hidden by those of the still dominant militant type that its ideal form is nowhere more than very partially exemplified. Saying thus much to exclude expectations which can not be fulfilled, it will be well, before proceeding, also to exclude probable misconceptions. In the first place, industrialism must not be confounded with industriousness. Though the members of an industrially-organized society are habitually industrious, and are, indeed, when the society is a developed one, obliged to be so, yet it must not be assumed that the industrially-organized society is one in which, of necessity, much work * Part XI of the series on "The Development of Political Institutions." VOL. XX.-1 is done. Where the society is small, and its habitat so favorable that life may be comfortably maintained with but little exertion, the social relations which characterize the industrial type may coexist with but very moderate productive activities. It is not the diligence of its members which constitutes the society an industrial one in the sense here intended, but the form of coöperation under which their labors, small or great in amount, are carried on. This distinction will be best understood on observing that, conversely, there may be, and often is, great industry in societies framed on the militant type. In ancient Egypt there was an immense laboring population, and a large supply of commodities, numerous in their kinds, produced by it. Still more did ancient Peru exhibit a vast community purely militant in its structure, the members of which worked unceasingly. We are here concerned, then, not with the quantity of labor, but with the arrangements under which it is carried on. A regiment of soldiers can be set to construct earthworks; another to cut down wood; another to bring in water; but they are not thereby reduced for the time being to an industrial society. The united individuals, doing these several things under command, and having no private claims to the products, are, though industriously occupied, not industrially organized. And the same holds throughout the militant society as a whole, in proportion as the regimentation of it approaches completeness. The industrial type of society, properly so called, must also be distinguished from a type very likely to be confounded with it-the type, namely, in which the component individuals, while exclusively engaged in production and distribution, are under a regulation such as that advocated by socialists and communists. For this, too, involves, in another form, the principle of compulsory cooperation. Directly or indirectly, individuals are to be prevented from severally and independently occupying themselves as they please; are to be prevented from competing with one another in supplying goods for money; are to be prevented from hiring themselves out on such terms as they think fit. There can be no artificial system for regulating labor which does not interfere with the natural system. To such extent as men are debarred from making whatever engagements they like, they are to that extent working under dictation. No matter in what way the controlling agency is constituted, it stands toward those controlled in the same relation as does the controlling agency of a militant society. And how truly the régime, which those who declaim against competition would establish, is thus characterized, we see both in the fact that substantially communistic forms of organization existed in early societies which were predominantly warlike, and in the fact that at the present time communistic projects chiefly originate among, and are most favored by, the more warlike societies. A further preliminary explanation may be needful. The structures proper to the industrial type of society must not be looked for in dis |