Introduction
(Old Change is the law of Nature. order changeth giving place to new). The history of civilisation presents an unbroken chain of social changes. In ancient and mediaeval days the slaves struggled hard and got freedom from the clutches of freemen, the plebeians from patricians, the serfs from barons, journeymen from guildsmen, bourgeoi-sie or the middle class from the landed aris-tocracy. These social changes were silent but potent. The advent of Industrial Revolu-tion in the eighteenth century brought a radical change in our ideas and social institu-tions. Slaves and serfs disappeared and their place was taken by the wage worker. Old peers and landed aristocracy were relegated to the background and their place was taken by new captains of industry. The doctrine of Mercantilism which advocated a policy of active governmental regulation and protection of industry and commerce received a severe blow from the physiocrats who maintained that the produc-tion of national wealth should not be ham-pered or hindered by legislative interference. They regarded private property and freedom of contract as an essential phenomena of an ordered society. Their policy of 'let alone and of natural liberty was summed up in the famous phrase 'laissez faire, laissez passer This doctrine obtained a firm hold in France and from there it spread all over Europe Adam Smith and other English classical economists made it more authoritative and popular. In his famous book "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (1776) Adam Smith advocated that natural economic principles, fixed private property and free competition essential features of rational economic system. In the nineteenth century the theory of Individualism got its fullest expression at the hands of John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer. "The only freedom which deserves the name", says John Stuart Mill, "is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others, or impede their own efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether physical, mental or spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest". The individual is the centre of all social life. The State should stand aloof and should interfere in the affairs of individuals except to check violence and crime, Herbert Spencer condemned the worship of the legislature. Carlyle considered 'the Leaders of Industry' as virtually the Captains of the World.
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