BUSINESS ETHICS.
The next day the doctor and I took the first opportunity to tell
Thorwald that we were anxious to have him proceed with his narrative.
“Yes,” he said, “I shall be glad to do so, for I had not reached the
important part when our sitting broke up yesterday.
“I was describing to you a remarkable era in our career, and one of you
mentioned the fact that the present condition of your race corresponded
in some particulars with that age on Mars. If you shall discover further
points of likeness as I continue, it will add a peculiar interest to my
story.
“There is a difference of opinion among our historians in regard to
those times. Some believe that the whole world was corrupt, that it was
an age of material development only, and that, if there were any good
impulses at all, they were so smothered with selfishness as to be of no
account. But these writers lived long ago, and were themselves more or
less under the shadow of that epoch. I strongly hold to the views of the
great majority of our scholars, who tell us that, while there was too
much evil of all kinds, there was also much good, and many believers in
a final happy issue out of all the troubles of the time.
“In a society so entirely given up to the pursuit of wealth and worldly
advantage of every sort, those who were trying to hold up the standard
of righteousness and to alleviate the lot of their fellow beings should
be remembered with gratitude. Among the multitude of inventions were
many that were calculated to relieve the laborer of his severest tasks,
to mitigate suffering, to ward off disease, and to lighten the load of
mankind in various ways. Large sums of money were given for hospitals,
charitable institutions, and colleges, and for other kinds of
philanthropic work, while private benevolences were not uncommon. There
was prosperity, too, of a certain kind, and some people were happy, or
thought themselves so. In the records of that as of every period of our
history, it is possible to find rays of light if we search for them, and
I tell you these things in order that you may get a fair understanding
of the situation, for in what follows you will see something of the
other side.
“I think I shall not err if I say that the gigantic evil of the times,
that from which others sprang, was the inordinate love of money. Even
political power, by which the opportunity was obtained of doing public
service, was too often sought merely for the better chance one had of
making money, as the saying was. In the revolt against aristocratic
government, the tendency in our race of going from one extreme to the
other was again shown, and universal suffrage was adopted. This would
have been wise if intelligence and honesty had also been universal. But
the result proved it to be an exceedingly bad policy, for it created
a large class of voters who held the high privilege of citizenship so
meanly, and were themselves so venal, that they would even sell their
votes to the highest bidder. This, supplemented by the immorality of
some of the intelligent citizens, made politics corrupt and the name of
politician too often a by-word.
“In doing business, by which was meant buying and selling and
manufacturing, also financial dealings and commerce, the passion
for money-getting was particularly prominent. An astonishingly small
percentage of those that went into business, as they said, made a
success, if we except the large manufacturers, but in spite of that
it was a popular way of earning a livelihood. One thing that made it
popular was the fact that there was always more or less speculation
in it. The haste to get rich made men too careless of the rights of
others.”
“Do you mean that all business was conducted dishonestly?” I asked.
“No,” answered Thorwald, “not as men looked at it then. There was a
great deal of downright knavery in business, but there was another class
who satisfied their consciences by being as honest as they could. The
thoughtful ones knew the system was wrong but felt themselves utterly
unable to replace it by a better one, and feeling no responsibility for
it, they were satisfied to smother their sensibilities and drift along.
They had their living to make, and, though they were not making it in an
ideal way, they did not know that any other kind of work would be more
satisfactory to their uneasy consciences.”
“Excuse me, Thorwald,” I said; “I am dull. What was there wrong in their
manner of doing business?”
“Can you see nothing wrong,” he answered, “in a system where one man’s
fortune was built on the ruins of another’s, or perhaps a score of
others, or where a business was started and increased solely by drawing
from another one already established?”
“Why,” said I, “that is competition, which they no doubt thought better
than monopoly. I can imagine that they argued that a man’s first duty
was to himself and his family, that one had a right to go into any
legitimate business, and that others must take care of themselves. The
evil, if there was any, they probably felt was incident to the nature of
business and could not be helped. I would like to ask how society could
exist with any other business rules.”
As I closed it struck me that I had spoken pretty fast and without much
discretion, and the impression was not removed as Thorwald answered with
dignity:
“I am telling you the state of things on this planet thousands of years
ago, and it is a sufficient answer to your question to say that society
at the present day is not governed on any such principles; still, we
seem to exist. It was a favorite saying in those days that ‘a man must
live,’ and one that was used as an argument or excuse for questionable
practices. The premise was wrong; it was not necessary to live: death
would have been far better for the world and for the individual than
a dishonorable life. So with society at large; better a change in the
social structure, caused by an awakened conscience, than a state of
peace founded on wrong principles. Our history proves that no particular
plan of society is necessary to the world and that no order based
on selfishness or injustice can long endure. But do not imagine such
changes were easy or swift in accomplishment. They came, not by
violence nor by the device of crafty men, but only through the universal
betterment of the race, whereby a state of things that had been
considered good enough, and then endured as the best attainable, became
at last positively wrong and was slowly pushed aside by a growing sense
of right.
“To return to your first question, as to what there was wrong in their
way of doing business, I want to say with emphasis that the essence of
the wrong was in an undue regard for self and an almost total disregard
for the interests of others. There were exceptions to the rule, notably
in the direction of charity and philanthropy and in religious work, but
I am speaking of the mass of the business community. It was every man
singly against all the rest of the world. No man was his brother’s
keeper. If one did not look out for himself, that was the end of it;
there was no one else to do it.”
“But the system itself made men selfish,” I ventured to say.
“To be sure it did,” he replied. “But why did they not then abolish the
system before it had brought upon them its long train of evils? It had
to go at last.”
“But,” I asked again, “was not competition a good thing for the large
number of people not directly engaged in business? Did it not keep down
the prices on all kinds of commodities?”
“Certainly not in the main. It increased prices, because it increased
the cost of everything. But let us suppose a case where it had the
effect you suggest. Could a man with a heart wear a coat, for example,
with any pleasure, if he knew that rivalry between the manufacturers had
forced the people who made the garment to accept starvation wages? And
this was done, not from humanitarian motives, to furnish the poor with
cheap clothing, but for the purpose of getting more business and so of
making more money.”
I could hardly resist the temptation at this point of asking Thorwald
if he had not been reading up on the current history of the earth, but I
knew well enough that was not possible, for we had brought no books with
us. And then I did not care to tell Thorwald just yet how near he
was coming to our experience. But I could not endure having the props
knocked from under our social structure without another effort to save
it. So I said:
“But were not the great majority of business men honest, and were not
these instances that you have cited extreme cases?”
“They were the natural results of a bad system. A great many men were
as honest as their environment would permit, and they tried to convince
themselves that they were not responsible for the environment.”
“Were they?” I asked eagerly.
“When they at last discovered that they were, then began a radical
change. I am not exaggerating the evils of the times. I am merely
setting them forth to show you how our race has improved with its
maturity. If my purpose required it, I could detail many good things in
the life of that people. One bright point in their character, to which I
just now referred, I will illustrate. My boy, who is also my student
in drawing, will never be able to make a straight line until he can
see that the line he has already made is not straight. His improvement
depends upon more than a steady hand. So with this people. Deep down in
their being, planted by a divine hand, were the instinct of truth
and the principle of growth, and when, in the natural course of their
development, they came to realize how unworthy they were of their better
nature, they set about the work of improvement.
“But they came to that knowledge through many sad experiences. I have
not begun to tell you the number and extent of the evils they endured.
“The desire for money affected all classes. The general prosperity had
bettered the condition of the wage-earners, creating many artificial
wants which could not be satisfied without good pay. Hence arose a
natural and constant effort to obtain higher wages, while competition
among the employers operated just as constantly to keep them down, and
the result was a sharp and increasing antagonism between capital and
labor. The general public shared in the blame for this state of things
by reason of the almost universal demand for cheap goods.
“While the introduction of machinery was a real advance, whose benefits
we are reaping to this day, other conditions had not become adjusted
to it at the time of which we are speaking, so that there was often a
surplus of workmen, especially in the lower grades of labor. This had
a tendency to reduce wages, of course; and the want of employment,
improvidence in the use of small wages, intemperance and other
immoralities, ignorance and misfortune, all combined to keep part of the
people in poverty. On the other hand, it was a time of great wealth and
luxurious living, and these two classes, so far apart in their manner of
life but often so near each other in all their selfish aims, seemed to
have a strong mutual attraction, for they were always found together,
crowding upon each other in every large city.
“One of the most difficult things for us of the present day to imagine
is, how persons of refinement and sensibility, living in comfort and
without a care, could take any pleasure in life when they knew that
within a stone’s throw of their doors were human beings who, very often
through no fault of their own, were so destitute that a crust would
relieve their want, or so friendless that a kind word would make them
shed tears of joy. Oh! I cannot comprehend it, and yet the record tells
us there were cases of just that nature, where such people, without
lifting a finger to alleviate the distress, actually laughed and were
happy. Happy! What could they know of happiness? The word must have
changed its meaning wonderfully, if we think of what it signifies
to-day.”