seemed to leave no other way of putting it, however. The communal principle, he noted, was cooperative, whereas "trade"—the central agency of social change—promoted cutthroat competition, a "concealed war of all against all." As community gave way to "society," production for use gave way to production for exchange, with the result that commodities were now valued purely for the profits they would yield, without reference to their intrinsic merits. A commercial society made even women "enlightened, coldhearted, conscious." Yet it freed them from male domination. In general, trade made for equality, at least insofar as individuals were "capable of engaging in exchange or entering into contracts." But it also made for selfishness and for a callous indifference to human suffering. It extinguished the impulse of pity; charity gave way to bureaucratically administered welfare programs.

Nothing could be clearer, I think, than the inability of Tönnies's "comparative method" to yield a consistent set of ethical judgments, unless it is the insistence with which his categories nevertheless invite such judgments. It will not do to claim neutrality on their behalf or to pretend that the historical facts they seem to allude to have the same status as the movement of the stars. History is not "fate," at least not as Tönnies understood it. It limits human freedom, to be sure, but it is also the product of human freedom. Tönnies himself never tired of pointing out that even community, notwithstanding its appearance of something organic, originated in acts of will—"essential will," he added, unable to resist another dichotomy, in contrast to the "rational will" that drives metropolitan civilization. For that very reason, however, history elicits moral judgments ; and Tönnies's analysis abounds in them. The trouble is that his judgments endlessly circle their object without coming to any resolution.

Uneasily aware that his readers might wonder about the moral of the story or look for some sort of political application, Tönnies could only disavow responsibility for "erroneous explications and for presumably

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