We know to-day that never in the entire history of mankind did any such conscious contract as Rousseau imagined take place; but it is nevertheless true that virtually, and by ultimate implication, something like a contract or bargain underlies the relation between classes in all states of society.
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.