belongs to the very primer stage of economic theory.
Adam Smith is rather out of fashion nowadays, but there is still much in
"The Wealth of Nations" which will repay our attention. No Socialist
writer, not even Marx, has stated the fundamental principle of the
antagonism between the employing and employed classes more clearly, as
witness the following:--

"The workmen desire to get as much, the masters to give as little as
possible. The former are disposed to combine in order to raise, the
latter in order to lower the wages of labor.... Masters are always and
everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination,
not to raise the wages of labor above their actual rate. To violate this
combination is everywhere a most unpopular action, and a sort of
reproach to a master among his neighbors and equals.... Masters too
sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of
labor.... These are always conducted with the utmost silence and
secrecy, till the moment of execution.... Such combinations, however,
are frequently resisted by a contrary defensive combination of the
workmen; who sometimes, too, without any provocation of this kind,
combine of their own accord to raise the price of labor. Their usual
pretenses are, sometimes the high price of provisions; sometimes the
great profits which the masters make by their work. But whether these
combinations be offensive or defensive, they are always abundantly heard
of. In order to bring the point to a speedy decision, they have always
recourse to the loudest clamor, and sometimes to the most shocking
violence and outrage. They are desperate, and act with the extravagance
and folly of desperate men, who must either starve, or frighten their
masters into an immediate compliance with their demands. The masters
upon these occasions are just as clamorous upon the other side, and
_never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate,
and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with so
much severity against the combinations of servants, laborers, and
journeymen_."[119]

Thus Adam Smith. Were it essential to our present purpose, it would be
easy to quote from all the great economists in support of the Socialist
claim that the interests of the capitalist and those of the laborer are
irreconcilably opposed. That individual workers and employers will be
found who do not recognize their class interests is true, but that fac