The abandonment of the _laissez faire_ policy, then, in favor of the principle of government regulation of industry is the outgrowth, not of any hostility to individual initiative, but of the conviction that the monopoly of industrial power by the few is a serious evil. It is manifestly impossible to restore to the masses the right of individual initiative. Industry is too complex and too highly organized to permit a return to the old system of decentralized control. And since the only substitute for the old system of individual control is collective control, it appears to be inevitable that government regulation of business will become a fixed policy in all democratic states. The _laissez faire_ policy is supposed to favor progress by allowing producers to make such changes in business methods as may be prompted by the desire for larger profits. The doctrine as ordinarily accepted contains at least two erroneous assumptions, viz., (1) that any innovation in production which makes it possible for the capitalist to secure a larger return is necessarily an improvement in the sense of augmenting the average efficiency of labor, and (2) that policies are to be judged solely by their economic effects. Even if non-interference resulted in industrial changes which in all cases increase the efficiency of labor, it would not follow that such changes are, broadly considered, always beneficial. Before drawing any sweeping conclusion we must consider all the consequences direct and indirect, immediate and remote, political and social as well as economic. Hence the ordinary test--the direct and immediate effect upon productive efficiency--is not a satisfactory one. Moreover, many changes in the methods or organization of business are designed primarily to alter distribution in the interest of the capitalist by decreasing wages or by raising prices. In so far as a policy of non-interference permits changes of this sort, it is clearly harmful to the community at large, though advantageous to a small class. In all democratic countries the conservative classes are beginning to realize that their ascendency in production is imperiled by the ascendency of the masses in the state. It thus happens that in the hope of checking or retarding the movement toward regulation of business in the interest of the people generally, they have taken refuge behind that abandoned tenet of democracy, the doctrine of non-interference.