For instance, let anyone propose to himself the problem of supplying with daily provisions of all kinds a city containing above a million of inhabitants. Let him imagine himself intrusted with the office of furnishing to this enormous host their daily rations. Any considerable failure in the supply, even for a single day, might produce the most frightful distress. Some of the articles consumed admit of being reserved; but many, including most articles of animal food, and many of vegetable, are of the most perishable nature. A redundancy of supply would produce great waste.

Moreover, in a district of such vast extent, it is essential that the supplies should be so distributed among the different quarters as to be brought almost to the doors of the inhabitants. Moreover, whereas the supply of provisions for an army is comparatively uniform in kind, here the greatest possible variety is required, suitable to the wants of various classes of consumers. Again, this immense population is extremely fluctuating in numbers; and the increase or diminution depends upon causes which cannot be distinctly foreseen.

Lastly, and above all, the daily supplies of each article must be so nicely adjusted to the stock from which it is drawn-to the scanty, or more or less abundant harvest, or other source of supply-to the interval which is to elapse before a fresh stock can be furnished, and to the probable abundance of the new supply, that as little distress as possible may be undergone; that upon the one hand the population may not unnecessarily be put upon short allowance, and that on the other hand they may be preserved from the more dreadful risk of famine, which would ensue from their continuing a free consumption when the store was insufficient to hold out.

Now let anyone consider this problem in all its bearings, reflecting upon the enormous and fluctuating number of persons to be fed; the immense quantity and the variety of the provisions to be furnished; the importance of a convenient distribution of them, and the necessity of husbanding them discreetly; and then let him reflect upon the anxious toil which such a task would impose on a board of the most experienced and intelligent commissaries; who after all would be able to discharge their office but very inadequately.

Yet this object is accomplished far better than it could be by any effort of human wisdom, through the agency of men, who think each of nothing beyond his immediate interest—and combine unconsciously to employ the wisest means for effecting an object, the vastness of which it would bewilder them even to contemplate.

Early and long familiarity is apt to generate a stupid indifference to many objects, which, if new to us, would excite great admiration; and many are inclined to hold cheap a stranger who expresses wonder at what seems to us very natural and simple, merely because we

have been used to it. A New Zealander who was brought to England was struck with especial wonder, in his visit to London, at the mystery of how such an immense population could be fed, as he saw neither cattle nor crops. Many Londoners, who laughed at the savage's admiration, would probably have been found never to have thought of the mechanism which is here at work.

It is really wonderful to consider with what ease and regularity this important end is accomplished, day after day, and year after year, through the sagacity and vigilance of private interest operating on the numerous class of wholesale and retail dealers. Each of these watches attentively the demands of his neighborhood, or of the market he frequents, for such commodities as he deals in. The apprehension, on the one hand, of not realizing all the profit he might, and, on the other, of having his goods left on his hands, either by his laying in too large a stock, or by his rivals' underselling him— these, acting like antagonistic muscles, regulate the extent of his dealings, and the prices at which he buys and sells. An abundant supply causes him to lower his price, and thus enables the public to enjoy that abundance; while he is guided only by the apprehension of being undersold; and, on the other hand, an actual or apprehended scarcity causes him to demand a higher price.

For doing this, corn-dealers in particular are often exposed to odium, as if they were the cause of the scarcity; while in reality they are performing the important service of husbanding the supply in proportion to its deficiency. But the dealers deserve neither censure for the scarcity which they are ignorantly supposed to produce, nor credit for the important public service which they in reality perform. They are merely occupied in gaining a fair livelihood. And in the pursuit of this object, without any comprehensive wisdom, or any need of it, they co-operate, unknowingly, in conducting a system which, we may safely say, no human wisdom directed to that end could have conducted so well.

B. PECUNIARY COMPETITION

96. Economic Activity as a Struggle for Existence

BY ARTHUR FAIRBANKS

The conditions of struggle are all but universal in society. Even writers who regard society as an organism point out a degree of competition between different functions and organs in the animal organism, and profess no surprise that with the less rigid structure

Adapted from Introduction to Sociology, 239-254 (1896).

of society, this competition becomes a far more important phase of all activity.

It needs no second glance to satisfy one that the economic activity of society may fittingly be called a struggle. Follow some industrial product from the factory up to the time when it is consumed. The manufacturer of cotton goods chooses between competing places for his factory; the makers of his machinery are struggling with each other to produce most economically engines, looms, etc., that are best adapted to his work; raw products he buys from sellers competing in the open market; labor he hires from among men who bid against each other for his work; transportation companies compete with one another in cheaply transferring his goods to market; and, in the market, seller is struggling with seller for the privilege of a sale with profit; buyer and seller bargain together to agree on a price. The present century has seen barrier after barrier swept away, till the whole world enters more or less freely into the one struggle; family and social distinctions are being obliterated in the industrial world; customs and laws in restraint of trade have been set aside.

The result of this sudden expansion of the industrial struggle is to force more clearly on thinkers the fact that civilization moves, not away from struggle, but to new forms of struggle. And the efforts to deal with the many difficulties which have arisen from this sudden change make it clear that it is not by seeking to prevent struggle, but by modifying its forms, that progress will be made. Laborers who suffered in an unequal struggle have won their rights by combining and entering the struggle as a larger unit. Groups of coöperative buyers have united to do away with the petty competition of the retail store, by elevating competition to a more reasonable plane. Nor are the greatest monopolies of the day altogether free from the higher forms of pressure in the economic struggle, uncontrolled as they may seem for a time.

The change in the form of the struggle modifies the competing units. More in evidence just now is the struggle between groups determined by class lines than groups determined by territorial lines. With the passing of the dominance of individualism, the struggle, apparently, is between larger groups. The truth is that a simple struggle is being succeeded by a complex struggle between different kinds of units. The individual is freed from numerous restrictions that used to hamper him, but the competition in which he engages is limited in a new way. Not only does increasing differentiation effectively limit the number with whom he competes, but much of the burden of the struggle is shifted from the shoulders

of the isolated individual to the group of which he is a member. Group competes with group, and the individual competes only with the other members of the group. The town removes many phases of the struggle for existence from each individual, the state removes many others; but within each political unit other ends call out the energy of the individual citizen. The manufacturer, in competing with other manufacturing groups, removes from his workmen much of the stress of economic struggle, but, within definite lines, the workman has only the more bitter a battle to fight.

But no group organization has or can eliminate personal competition between the members of a group. The actual outcome of the social process in which the fit tend to survive and multiply depends largely upon the organization of a given society. With the removal of rigid barriers there has developed a more or less definite apparatus for weeding out the unfit, and advancing those who are fit for better things. In the contest for industrial position, the laborer who can most economically perform a given task is the only one to whom an employer can afford to give the task. Each industrial crisis constitutes a severe test for everyone in the industrial world; the less fit are thrown out of their place in the industrial world, wherever it may be. The so-called "out-of-work" class simply consists of those whose work cannot be utilized. During periods of industrial expansion, the man of wisdom, skill, and vigor expects advancement, because new positions are being created for which these are the only recommendation. Always, everywhere, this contest for individual position is going on.

70. Competition and Organization*

BY CHARLES H. COOLEY

It seems to me that the fundamental point always touched upon in questions of competition is the meaning of competition in relation to organization. Now what is the meaning of competition in this regard? I take it to be simply an organizing process. The world is full of various agents. These agents in one way or another are continually getting displaced in the social structure, by the death of individuals, the decay of groups and systems, etc. Some method must be found of constantly building up the organization. If there is any other method of doing this than competition in the broad sense I do not know what it is. There must be some means of com

Adapted from an article in the American Journal of Sociology, XIII, 655-658 (1907).

*

paring and selecting the agents and adapting them to their work. Competition is not merely a cause of organization; it is also an effect. As everywhere else in the interdependent social system, we find all influences interacting, each a cause of change in the other. Organization is a cause in that it furnishes motives and standards and methods of competition. These things are determined by custom, by law, by public opinion, by the inherited ideas of men.

Taking these points for granted, we come to the question, What is the matter with existing competition? I should say the matter is simply that existing competition shares in the prevailing disintegration of social structures. We are all familiar with this disintegration. It is chiefly, though not entirely, economic in its origin. The result is that the standards, the methods of competition, today, are very far from being what the most enlightened human nature would desire to have them. They are what is sometimes called "individualistic" in the bad sense of the word.

Perhaps I can best indicate this by taking an example. Let us suppose that there is a ship sailing on the seas, properly manned with officers and crew. Now, here is an organization. It may not be apparent at first that competition is going on in this little society; but it is. If a mate does well, he may very likely get appointed captain on the next cruise, or his wages may be raised. Or again the ship may be competing with another ship across the ocean and various advantages may accrue if it succeeds. Here is well-ordered competition in which merit succeeds. That is to say, the test of success is something for the good of society, namely, the welfare of the ship and of commerce. But suppose that the ship quite unexpectedly in the dark runs upon an iceberg. The captain and the crew are thrown into the water. The society immediately and entirely disappears. The individuals are all struggling in the water, and a new kind of competition takes place. From the good of the ship and society, it falls back on the animal instinct for self-preservation. Man becomes a mere brute under these circumstances. The customs and modes of thought that keep society on a proper level are destroyed.

Something analogous to this is widely prevalent in present society. To pass on to the question as to how competition may become better: It is by building up the social organization through competition itself and raising the level of that competition by the ordinary methods of human endeavor.