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This paper discusses the new economic and social tendencies of the European civilization. Individual freedom and political rights and national sovereignty and independence have been governing the ideals of the modern world. While they have been conquering public opinion and being given conscious political sanctions, a new set of social and economic conditions have been coming into existence. The age of nationalism has been marked by the growing internationalization of social and economic life. At the time of the French Revolution, each European people was distinct in its culture, its customs, its ways of thought, event its costumes. The victory of political liberalism and the acquisition of individual liberties appear to have been accompanied by an increasing loss of individual independence and initiative in the ordinary business of life. This also is the result of economic causes. It has come about that the center of social gravity has shifted from the political to the economic field. People still preserve the old political forms, but it is the economic issues that control their lives. The true feature of the new society, according to professional historian M. Lucien Romier, is not the class struggle but the growth of great economic interests which transcend the boundaries of nation and class.