If pure selfishness were the only motive influencing the masses of
mankind, the evils which we have considered in the preceding chapter
would be wholly unbearable. All men would be waging an industrial
warfare with each other in their greed for gain, just as the barons of
feudal times fought to satisfy their thirst for power and possessions;
and as motive is the great force which determines character, we would
be, as far as moral excellence is concerned, in the same category as the
uncivilized savages.
Fortunately for the happiness of the race, there are important
influences at work counteracting, modifying and ameliorating the social
evils that threaten us. These influences are not cures for these evils,
though they are so considered by very many people. But they are very
important palliatives. They are certainly of inestimable value in the
lack of real remedies; but it is better to consider them as palliatives
merely; for necessary, as they are and always will be, to soften and
relieve the ruggedness of human laws and human administration of law, in
the present condition of humanity they cannot effect a cure of the evils
which burden us.
The first of these palliatives has a purely selfish origin. It arises
from the desire of the managers of every monopoly to make the greatest
possible profit from its operations. Let us take, for example, a street
railway monopoly which is at liberty to charge such rates of fare as it
chooses and which has no competitors. If it fixes its fare at 10 cents,
very many people will prefer to walk or take some other mode of
conveyance, who, if the fare was at 5 cents, would patronize the road.
Thus it may very likely happen that 5-cent fares will yield it the
greatest net income. It is often said that it is competition which has
brought our rates of railroad transportation down to their present low
point. While this is largely true, it is also true that the tendency to
foster the growth of traffic by making a low tariff has been a large
factor in bringing rates down to a reasonable point. Another example of
this principle's operation is in the case of monopolies protected by the
patent laws. In this case the collection of only a moderate royalty will
generally result in greater profits to the inventor than he would secure
by exacting a large fee, because of the greatly increased sales in the
former case.
It should not be understood, however, that this principle has its only
application in cases similar to the two mentioned. There is hardly an
industry, monopolized or competitive, into which it does not enter to
effect important results. It is to be noted, however, that it is least
effective where the demand for the monopolized article is least
sensitive to a variation in price. This fact should be considered by
those who are fond of arguing that this principle alone is always
sufficient to prevent monopolies from doing much harm. While it is
powerful in the case of such monopolies as we have mentioned, where the
demand for the commodity furnished varies greatly with the price, in the
case of the great copper trust or of the quinine trust or of any
monopoly controlling the great staples of human consumption, it seems
plain that it can have little effect. Nor do we need to base our proof
that this principle is not a sufficient remedy upon this ground alone.
Grant it to be true that a certain monopoly makes the greatest net
profit when its rates or prices are at a certain point; then will it not
be apt to set them slightly above that point, where they will give
nearly the same profit with a considerable decrease in the volume of
business transacted and in the corresponding labor and responsibility?
And, again, the point where it makes the greatest net profit is
considerably above the point where it is of the greatest possible
benefit to the community at large. This latter end is attained when it
uses its facilities to their full capacity for the benefit of the
public. The rates should be fixed at such a point that this full
capacity will be utilized, or as much higher as may be necessary to pay
the monopoly a fair profit on its operations.
This influence just considered has its origin in the selfishness of men.
The second, and by far the most important influence tending to
ameliorate the evils due to monopolies and intense competition arises
from that essentially noble trait of human character whose province it
is to seek the welfare of others before that of self. It is not to be
wondered at that the large benevolence of our noblest Christian thinkers
rebels against the inflexible laws of competition, or rather at their
stern application to modern conditions of life. Under our social system,
indeed, each man is striving to do his utmost to benefit his fellow-men,
but only so far as it benefits himself. Christianity goes far beyond
this. It teaches the Fraternity of Man, the Fatherhood of God, and thus
the duty of all men to care for and love their brothers' happiness and
welfare. It is in accord with the noblest and most exalted desires of
the human soul. It teaches a man to seek to benefit others for their own
sake, not for the sake of the reflex benefit on himself.
The burden of Christ's sermon on the mount was that golden rule of
action, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to
them"; and the whole of his teachings glow with the spirit of
fraternity; the strong bearing the burdens of the weak; the rich cast
down and the poor exalted; brother sharing with brother, according to
their needs. We are accustomed to make ourselves complaisant with the
reflection that these were figurative expressions, and not meant as
literal commands. But if we consider candidly, we must confess that if
it is the spirit of its Master's commands which the Church means to
follow, it is very far, as a body, from reaching up to their full
import. The love for one's fellow-men which Christ taught was certainly
meant to be expressed in great, noble acts of brotherly kindness.
Consider the want, the suffering, the distress, the misfortune, the
inequality by which a thousand families have hard work and scanty fare
while one revels in luxury. Are these thing repugnant to the spirit of
Christianity, or not? Every one knows that they are. It is because
Christian men in these days are prone to follow their own ease in common
with the rest of the world, and are accustomed to make their Christian
code of morals to fit that which public opinion declares to be
sufficiently advanced, that Christianity as a remedy for social evils
has fallen into disrepute with the laboring classes. But men, both in
and out of the Church, who are better informed as to the grand and noble
spirit that lies at its foundation, are coming to look more and more
toward Christianity as the only deliverance from the evils that threaten
us.
Our social system, say the devout among these men, is based on the
selfish desires of men, their wish to get the most for themselves with
the least service to their fellow-men. It is inconceivable that a system
founded on any thing less than the noblest attributes of humanity can be
intended as a permanent basis for society. The system founded on
competition was adapted to the conditions of men during the formative
period of civilization: but modern inventions, processes, and methods
are revealing a strange want of elasticity in its action. It is leading
us to such grave evils that men everywhere are looking for an escape
from it. We are brought face to face with the fact that the law of
competition, the cruelly terse "survival of the fittest," was never
meant to control the wondrously intricate relations of the men of the
coming centuries. And if selfishness is not to control, it is because
unselfishness is to reign in its stead. It is because there will grow up
in the hearts of men a fraternal love, such as the world has not yet
seen, which will make them gladly share a common inheritance with each
other, as they do a common Fatherhood. Men will then labor for others'
welfare as now; but each with the thought of others' benefit, not of his
own.
Nor are these men alone in their belief. Earnest thinkers outside of the
Church, who are familiar with the evils which intense competition and
extortionate monopoly are constantly pushing into our notice, discern a
tendency in our social organism to pulsate with stronger and more rapid
beats in its convulsions of strike and boycott and commercial crisis.
And in these mighty vibrations, like the swing of a gigantic pendulum,
there is danger that it may swing so hard and so far as to break its
controlling bonds and leave humanity in chaos.
Anarchy means more than the reign of individualism. It means such a ruin
of the world's wealth, the storehouses and fields and factories which
supply its wants, that nine tenths of the population of the globe would
be swept off its face by actual starvation. Some social organism there
must be if our civilization is to continue. What can adjust the delicate
relations of man to man when the bond of selfishness which holds us
together breaks? There are many men, even now, whose greatest desire and
strongest purpose is to benefit their fellow-men; and if we can extend
and strengthen this noble principle so that it will govern the great
mass of humanity, why may we not cease to measure and bargain and weigh
with our brother men?
Such is the argument for what we may appropriately call Christian
communism. Who shall say what shall be possible with a new and nobler
generation of men? When the great mass of the race has Altruism for its
governing motive, then it may be possible to use that trait of character
as the basis of industrial society. But to-day the governing motives of
mankind are largely selfish. Society must govern men in their dealings
with each other, not by arbitrary force but by their inner motives of
action. When men at large begin to heartily desire to benefit others
more than themselves, then the system of selfish competition will begin
to disappear, and the system of fraternal devotion will arise to take
its place. This will come about naturally. It will be an effect which
can only be brought about by producing the cause. When Christianity
shall have so regenerated mankind that its governing motives are noble
and generous, then the social problems we are discussing, as well as
many others, will be forever happily solved.
Every one will say, God speed the attempt to implant such noble motives
in the breasts of men; but we recognize at the same time the vast change
which must be wrought before mankind at large will reach this high
standard; and in the centuries which will be required to effect this, we
must have other forces to govern society. Thus, while not denying the
possibility that the Christian principle of Altruism may be the final
solution of the problem of society, it seems best for us to regard it at
the present day as what it is,--an influence tending to smooth over the
inequalities and soften the asperities of our social system, and to
transform the warfare of competition into a peaceable and friendly
emulation.
It is not easy to overestimate the valuable work which this Christian
principle of human fraternity is thus doing at the present day. It is
recognized in many ways so common that we cease to think of them as what
they are--expressions of the common brotherhood of man. Our vast public
charities supported by law are an instance. It is recognized now by all
civilized countries that it is a duty for the State to care for those
who are so poor or unfortunate as to be unable to care for themselves.
Private charities, too, are as much more enormous now than they were a
century ago as private fortunes are, compared with those of that day. In
fact, beneficence has come to be recognized as an important duty of the
very wealthy; and churches, schools, hospitals, and the like bear
witness everywhere to the benevolence of wealthy men. All this public
and private benevolence has certainly accomplished wonderful results in
relieving the want and misfortune of men, and making their lot a
bearable one.
The above beneficences require outright giving; but there are many ways
in which the fraternal spirit of men works to cause men to treat each
other in business affairs more liberally than they would if competition
were the only governing motive. In very many cases of the employment of
labor, the wages paid are higher than the rate which competition alone
would fix. It is true that this is largely due to a selfish motive. The
men are more contented and industrious than when their wages are lower.
There are always plenty of applicants for any vacant position. The men
are not prone to find fault with their pay, knowing that plenty would be
glad to fill their places. At the same time, it is certainly true that
in many cases a principal motive for giving higher wages is the desire
to be liberal and generous with the workers whose labor brings income
and profits. Again it is very frequently the case that mills and mines
are kept in operation in dull times, when goods must be sold at a loss,
if sold at all, simply to keep the employees from the destitution and
suffering consequent upon idleness. Cases of especial personal
benevolence are still more common. There are tens of thousands of
working people to-day rendering service whom their employers well know
to be unprofitable servants, but who are retained because their youth or
age or incapacity renders them proper objects of assistance in this way,
a sort of charity far better than outright gift.
In business enterprises, again, the spirit of fraternity is widely
diffused. As we have seen, it has been one principal cause of the
formation of trusts and combinations to limit and restrain competition.
There are also a growing number of enterprises which are purely
philanthropic, such as the provision of cheap and healthy homes for
working men and women.
In the conduct of business, too, public opinion does not approve of the
man who exacts the utmost farthing, and weighs and measures to the
closest fraction. The most grasping creditor, who precipitates the ruin
upon the bankrupt, and the landlord or money-lender, who exacts
pitilessly and turns a deaf ear to the call of a brother for mercy, are
also condemned at the bar of public opinion.
These and many other considerations lead us to some knowledge of the
inestimable value of the principle of fraternity to correct the harsh
and inequitable working of the industrial organism. It remains only to
be said that in this sphere of action its influence is but a small
fraction of what it ought to be and what it promises to become.
It is through their conscience, as well as through their innate sense of
justice and right, that men are coming to see how the extortion by
monopolies and the waste of competition in which they have engaged are
an injury to the common weal and an expression of might rather than of
right. It is in this way that we are beginning to discern the faults and
imperfections of our present industrial system and to recognize that
progress toward better things is to be found by recognizing, not
covering, these faults, and doing all in our power to remedy them. In
this work the Christian Church should be in the lead; and a large
proportion of its pastors, accustomed to an earnest and sympathetic
appreciation of social evils, are among the foremost to second the
efforts of modern reformers. Of the rank and file of the Church,
however, it is to be regretfully said that they are eminently
conservative; and that, with very many notable exceptions, they are
certainly not in the lead in the efforts to equalize the injustices
which have grown up under the laws of competition. It is largely because
the course of Christians is in this respect so inconsistent with their
professed belief in that grand doctrine of man's divine origin and
universal brotherhood, that the Church, is losing the respect of the
laboring classes. Nor will it regain that respect until it shows by
unmistakable evidence to the men who toil with their hands that it is
alive to the questions of the day,--alive to the injustice of society
to-day; and that the love of the Church's great Master for their souls
is echoed by a longing in the hearts of his followers for their temporal
welfare.
But it should be also said that, save as they assume it, the
responsibility of those within the Church is not greater than of those
without. All men alike are brothers; and it is more, far more, than a
selfish tie that binds us together in civilized society. Legal rights
are based largely on the system of competition under which our
industries have grown up; but the moral duties of all men go far beyond
this. It is the duty of all men alike to supplement the working of the
law of selfish competition with the acts of a fraternal love for the
welfare of all men. Too much stress cannot be laid on this. There can be
little doubt that if it were not for the charity and beneficence and for
the strong spirit of humanity, which lives in a strange strength, even
in the hearts of the debased and evil-minded, the industrial warfare
which our modern competition has come to be would have wrought tenfold
more evil than it has, and would have already arrayed class against
class with other weapons than those of peaceable industry. May Heaven
grant that the time shall never come when the growth of the principle
of human fraternity shall not far outstrip and overtop the growth of
human selfishness, whatever forms the latter may take.
In concluding this chapter it seems eminently proper to call attention
to one practical application of this great principle of fraternity which
ought to go a great way towards saving us from the results of mistakes
in our attempts to remedy the evils which have grown up. The fraternal
principle should lead men to judge charitably the men who are engaged in
monopolies and in wasting the world's wealth in intense competition. The
more especially as _these evils are due, not to the malignity of any
person, but to our system of industry, which causes them to spring up_.
The investigation which we pursued in the first chapters showed very
clearly that monopolists are simply striving, like all other men, to
protect and advance their own interests by what they consider legal and
honorable means. And our study of the laws of competition has shown us
that the evils of monopoly and unhealthy competition are the natural
outgrowth of the great revolution in modern industries by which the
number of competing units has been reduced from many to few.
Unfortunately there is a great tendency to make these evils worse by
recrimination. It is very common to hear those engaged in monopolistic
enterprises, whether as owners or managers, denounced as unscrupulous
villains, double-dyed rascals, scoundrelly enemies of the people, or
perhaps in terms less blunt but more scathing. Now, what are the facts
of the case? Speaking broadly, it is a fact that the men who own and
manage our modern monopolies are as a class far more large-hearted in
their sympathies than the average of men. It is only because they do not
realize the consequences of their acts that they seem to those who do
realize them and those who suffer by them to be incomprehensibly brutal.
The same man who at a corporation meeting may do his part toward
throwing a thousand men out of employment or wasting a million dollars
of the world's wealth to effect some monster "deal," may stop as he
leaves his office to help a crippled beggar regain his feet; and when he
hears of the destitution that his own official act has helped create, he
will give with a lavish hand to relieve it. When we come to questions
between labor and its employers, more than this is true. The employers
of labor as a class are closely in sympathy with the honest desire of
their men to better themselves, and the constant increase in the
employment of arbitration to settle difficulties, the experiments in
co-operation and profit-sharing, and the furnishing of cheap and good
houses to the workers are all evidences of this fact.
The truth is, that it is circumstances, not men, which have created
monopolies. For to tell the truth, there are but very few men who, if
put in the place of the stigmatized monopolists, would not have done as
much or more, as their abilities permitted, to achieve a fortune as have
these men. All men strive in general to make as much as possible out of
their fellow-men, and to gain the most possible with the least labor.
The monopolist only goes further on this road than most other men can
go.
On the other hand, a still more common error exists with reference to
the monopolies of labor. The newspaper press seems strangely fond of
repeating the statement that all labor organizations are kept up by idle
and turbulent labor agitators, who wish to live off the proceeds of
their fellows' labor. A little candid thought and investigation will
convince any one that this is an out-and-out lie, and as such deserves
the condemnation of all honest men. Granted, indeed, that labor
monopolies are an evil, as we have fully shown, and that the men who
have charge of them are far from perfect, and make many mistakes, they
have far more to excuse them than have the men who form monopolies for
the purpose of adding to fortunes already plethoric. The truth is, that
if the men who are so incomprehensibly unjust in their estimate of the
work of labor organizations were put in the place of the laborers at the
bench or in the mill, they would be foremost in securing their own
rights by organizing their fellow workmen. It would be a great thing for
the world's peace if men would try to look at their brother's failings
through their brother's eyes. Before you criticise a man too harshly,
candidly consider whether you would do any better if you were in his
place.
We hear much said of the folly and wickedness of stirring up and
reviving the sectional animosity between the North and the South; and
all patriotic men rejoice in burying past issues and inaugurating the
era of a united nationalism. But those who, by personal attacks upon
monopolists, whether they are millionaire monopolists or hard-handed
workingmen, cultivate animosity and hatred between social classes
already too widely separated and too prone to hostility, are sowing seed
whose fruit may be reaped in a social strife far more destructive and
fatal than any sectional strife could be. In discussing remedies for the
evils we have been investigating, we should always keep the fact in mind
that our remedy should seek, not to punish, but to cure. Personal or
class enmities never yet helped the world to advance. It will be
fortunate if men can be taught to see how useless such enmities are in
this case; and how little revenge and reprisal can ever do to heal a
wrong.