But although ordinarily, justice is fulfilled if a person pay either the legal or market price, neither is really based on justice. The price fixed by law will come closer to being a just price. In a self-governing community, it probably will not do a great injustice to either party for any length of time. In this country its field is so limited, that it may be disregarded in the present discussion. The market price, however, makes no pretense of being determined by justice. It is the shrewdness of one man pitted against the shrewdness of another, or even the greed of one against the other's need. One wants to sell for as high a price while the other wants to buy for as low a price as he can. When there are numerous buyers and numerous sellers, all knowing their business pretty well, the result will be a close approximation to what would be a just price, if the cost to the entrepreneur producing the commodities or the person managing the distributing agency were all that should be taken into consideration. In a society where the actual producer sells directly to the Consumer, where there is no production on an enormous scale employing hundreds and thousands of hands who have no voice in fixing the price of the product, then the price reached by the higgling of the market is likely to be just. Under the medieval system of craftsmen and one or two journeymen or apprentices who formed part of the household it was possible (by lack of competition) to maintain the rate of reward by limiting the supply. "No serious attempt was made to push trade or develop business, but only to carry on each trade according to the habitual rate of reward. According to this policy, the conditions of the producer were allowed to be the first consideration, and the consumer had to pay a price at which these conditions could be maintained."[12] But conditions of business have changed immensely since the Middle Ages. The Industrial Revolution has brought big scale production, driving out of existence the small producer ministering directly and immediately to the wants of the community. Department stores have supplied the same principle in the distributing end of industry, and very largely replaced the small retailer. The employees of the big producer and distributor, the ones most concerned, have no voice in fixing the price of the article made or distributed by their labor. As a consequence competition will often depress the price below the point where it will yield a living wage to them. Not their rights determine this point, but what crude irresistible hunger will force them to accept. Many times it is only a difference between starving rapidly or slowly. But competition is inexorable.