Legislative attempts to raise wages, limitation of competition in
the labour market, taxes or restrictions on machinery, and on
improvements of all kinds tending to dispense with any of the existing
labour- even, perhaps, protection of the home producer against
foreign industry are very natural (I do not venture to say whether
probable) results of a feeling of class interest in a governing
majority of manual labourers.
It will be said that none of these things are for the real
interest of the most numerous class: to which I answer, that if the
conduct of human beings was determined by no other interested
considerations than those which constitute their "real" interest,
neither monarchy nor oligarchy would be such bad governments as they
are; for assuredly very strong arguments may be, and often have
been, adduced to show that either a king or a governing senate are
in much the most enviable position, when ruling justly and
vigilantly over an active, wealthy, enlightened, and high-minded
people. But a king only now and then, and an oligarchy in no known
instance, have taken this exalted view of their self-interest: and why
should we expect a loftier mode of thinking from the labouring
classes? It is not what their interest is, but what they suppose it to
be, that is the important consideration with respect to their conduct:
and it is quite conclusive against any theory of government that it
assumes the numerical majority to do habitually what is never done,
nor expected to be done, save in very exceptional cases, by any
other depositaries of power- namely, to direct their conduct by their
real ultimate interest, in opposition to their immediate and
apparent interest.
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