The comparatively simple organization of feudal society broke down
under the stress of these changes; a middle class, consisting of
neither lords nor villeins, was needed to cope with industry and
commerce. Handworkers also were required, so that from the middle of
the fourteenth century we find a regular flight from the land to the
towns in progress. Another great change took place. No one had been
rich according to modern notions in the early Middle Ages, and no one
had been destitute; there was no need of a Poor Law. But with the
expansion of the sphere of men's operations, the differences between
the poor and the rich began to increase. There is little to choose
between a slow runner and a swift when the race covers only ten yards;
there is more when it covers a hundred, and a great deal when it covers
a mile. So, too, when operations are limited to the village market,
ability has a limited scope, and the able financier does not grow so
very much richer than his neighbour. But when his market comprises a
nation, his means for acquiring wealth are extended; the rich become
richer, and the poor, comparatively at any rate, poorer. Hence, when in
the fourteenth and following centuries the national market expands into
a world market, we find growing up side by side capitalism and
destitution; and the reason why there are so many millionaires and so
much destitution to-day, compared with earlier times, is that the world
is now one market, and the range of operations is only limited by the
globe.
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