"As I need not remind you who were familiar with it, the industrial system of the world before the great Revolution was wholly based upon the compulsory servitude of the mass of mankind to the possessing class, enforced by the coercion of economic need."
"Undoubtedly," I said, "the poor as a class were in the economic service of the rich, or, as we used to say, labor was dependent on capital for employment, but this service and employment had become in the nineteenth century an entirely voluntary relation on the part of the servant or employee. The rich had no power to compel the poor to be their servants. They only took such as came voluntarily to ask to be taken into service, and even begged to be, with tears. Surely a service so sought after could scarcely be called compulsory."
"Tell us, Julian," said the doctor, "did the rich go to one another and ask the privilege of being one another's servants or employees?"
"Of course not."
"But why not?"
"Because, naturally, no one could wish to be another's servant or subject to his orders who could get along without it."
"I should suppose so, but why, then, did the poor so eagerly seek to serve the rich when the rich refused with scorn to serve one another? Was it because the poor so loved the rich?"
"Scarcely."
"Why then?"
"It was, of course, for the reason that it was the only way the poor could get a living."