Freedom does not consist in any dreamt-of independence from natural laws, but in the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically making them work towards definite ends.
The state, therefore, has not existed from all eternity. There have been societies that did without it, that had no notion of the state or state power. At a certain stage of economic development, which was necessarily bound up with the split of society into classes, the state became a necessity.
The way in which men produce their means of subsistence depends first of all on the nature of the actual means they find in existence and have to reproduce.
The more the division of labor and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together.
