When one man contracts to sell a horse for a certain price, and another
man to pay that price for it, the price in question is agreed to because
the buyer says to himself on the one hand, "If I do not consent to pay
so much, I shall lose the horse, which is to me worth more than the
money"; and the seller says to himself on the other hand, "If I do not
consent to accept so little, I shall lose the money, which is to me
worth more than the horse." Each bases his argument on a conscious or
subconscious reference to the situation which will arise if the bargain
is not concluded. Similarly, when any nation submits to a foreign rule,
and forbears to revolt though it feels that rule distasteful, it
forbears because, either consciously or subconsciously, it feels that
the existing situation, whatever its drawbacks, is preferable to that
which would arise from any violent attempt to change it. The same thing
holds good of the labouring classes as a whole, as related to those
classes who, in the modern world, direct them. By implication, if not
consciously, they are partners to a certain bargain. They are not
partners to a bargain because they consent to labour, for there is no
bargaining with necessity; and they would have to labour in any case, if
they wished to remain alive.
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