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71. The Beneficence of Competition"

BY CHARLES KINGSLEY

Sweet competition! Heavenly maid!-Now-a-days hymned alike by penny-a-liners and philosophers as the ground of all societythe only real preserver of the earth! Why not of Heaven, too? Perhaps there is competition among the angels, and Gabriel and Raphael have won their ranks by doing the maximum of worship on the minimum of grace? We shall know some day. In the meantime, "these are thy works, thou parent of all good!" Man eating man, eaten by man, in every variety of degree and method! Why does not some enthusiastic political economist write an epic on "The Consecration of Cannibalism"?

72. Competition and Selfishness

BY S. J. CHAPMAN

I must reiterate, in order that there may be no mistake, that modern analytical economics neither assumes nor advocates selfishness. But without relegating sentiment to Saturn, we may hold that the affections do not directly enter into most business transactions. "Oh 'tis love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round," asserted the duchess in Alice in Wonderland. "Somebody whispered," said Alice, "that it's done by everybody minding his own business." However, among the impulses which are the motive power of business activities, the affections may play a large part indirectly. A man may work his best to make as much as possible in the interests of his family or friends, or even for philanthropic purposes. Finally it must not be imagined that, in the absence of altruistic motives, a man who works his hardest for success must be sordid. The passion of great business leaders is commonly quite other than that of the miser. Because money provides the counters which measure commercial triumphs, we are apt to go astray in our analysis. They who play cards for cowries are not mastered by a passion for cowries.

73. The Ethics of Competition'

BY J. A. HOBSON

The consciousness of social service as a stimulus to work is not inconsistent with competition. The artist who labours to express

"From "Cheap Clothes and Nasty," in Alton Locke, lxviii-lxix (1850). "From Outlines of Political Economy, 17-18 (1911).

'Adapted from The Industrial System, 307-308 (1909).

himself to others can only succeed on condition that he keeps before his mind these others: mere self-expression is not art at all. Though, therefore, the artist may be working for gain, and may be conscious of his competitors, the interest in his work and his capacity to do it involves some regard for the public. The same applies also to the artisan so far as his manipulation of material involves conscious regard for its utility, and therefore consideration of the needs of the consumers. So, too, with the professions; however keen the rivalry of professional men to get employment may be, the nature of the work they do involves the detailed operation of disinterested motives leading them to value their work for its real social utility rather than for the gain it brings them. This is the well-recognised difference between a profession and a trade, which has always underlain the lower esteem in which tradesmen and the trading spirit have been held.

It is, indeed, in commerce, and primarily in retail trade, rather than in manufacture or any branch of production, that the ethics of competition appears to do most damage, the reason, of course, being that in the dealing processes antagonism of human interests is sharpest, and the conscious energy of dealers is most confined to the pursuit of personal profit.

In most manufactures, though the employer is not in business "for his health," but primarily to make profits, the skill and intricacy of the practical operations which he conducts absorb much of his attention, and pride in the character of his business and the equality of its products dignifies his conduct. Just in proportion as he is not forced to concentrate his thought and feeling upon the art of getting business away from other firms and pushing his claims against theirs in the market, does his work take conscious shape in his mind as the social function which it really is. Just in proportion as the competitive activities assume prominence is he compelled to sink this social feeling, to push his goods in conscious rivalry with those of other firms, and to cultivate those arts of sweating, adulteration, and deceit, which seem necessary to enable him to sell goods at a profit.

Such considerations indicate that the moral economy of competition is not simple or uniform: where it takes shape in the rivalry of Euripides, Aeschylus and Sophocles to win the favour of an Athenian public for their respective dramas it may act as a direct incentive of the highest form of social wealth; where it operates among struggling grocers in the same street it may mean starved assistants, short weights and doctored goods.

74. State Determination of the Plane of Competitive Actions

BY HENRY C. ADAMS

What is meant by saying that unguarded competition tends to lower the moral sense of a business community? Wherever the personal element of a service comes prominently into view, and the character of the agent rather than the quality of goods is forced into prominence, probity has its market value and honesty may be the best policy. But in the commercial world as at present organized, where the producer and the consumer seldom come into personal contact, the moral arrangements followed in the process of production are not permitted a moment's thought. All that is considered by the purchaser is the quality and the price of the goods. Those that are cheap he will buy; those that are dear he will reject; and in this manner he encourages those methods of production that lead to cheapness.

There are of course exceptions to this rule. But these exceptions do not vitiate it. There must be substantial uniformity in the methods of all producers who continue in competition with each other. Each man in the business must adopt those rules of management which lead to low prices, or he will be compelled to quit the business. And if this cheapness, the essential requisite of business success, be the result of harsh and inhuman measures, or if it lead to misrepresentation and dishonesty on the part of salesmen or manufacturers, the inevitable result must be that harshness and inhumanity will become the essential condition of success, and business men will be obliged to live a dual existence.

The fact upon which we insist at this point is that an isolated man is powerless to stem the tide of prevalent custom, and that in many lines of business those men whose moral sensibilities are the most blunted exercise an influence in determining prevalent custom altogether out of proportion to their importance as industrial agents. Suppose that of ten manufacturers nine have a keen appreciation of the evils that flow from protracted labor on the part of women and children; and, were it in their power, would gladly produce cottons without destroying family life, and without setting in motion those forces that must ultimately result in race-deterioration. But the tenth man has no such apprehensions. The claims of family life, the rights of childhood, and the maintenance of social well-being, are but words to him. He measures success wholly by the rate of profit. If now the state stand as an unconcerned spectator, the Adapted from The Relation of the State to Industrial Activity, 39-47

(1887).

nine men will be forced to conform to the methods adopted by the one. Their goods come into competition with his goods, and we who purchase do not inquire under what conditions they were manufactured. In this manner it is that men of the lowest character have it in their power to give the moral tone to the entire business community. One of the most common complaints of business men is that they are obliged to conform to rules of conduct which they despise. It is a necessary result of a competitive society that the plane of business morals is lower than the moral character of a great majority of men who compose it.

But what, it may be asked, can the state do in the premises? The state has done much and can do more. That code of enactments known as "factory legislation" is addressed to just this evil of competitive society, and it only remains for us to formulate for this code an economic defense. The general rule laid down for the guidance of state interference in industries was that society should be secured in the benefits while secured against the evils of competitive action. When the large body of competitors agree respecting some given method of procedure, but are powerless to follow it because a few men engaged in the same line of business refuse to conform to the proposed regulations, it becomes the province of the state to incorporate the wish of the majority in some practical law. In this manner there is established a legal plane of competition higher than that which could be maintained in the absence of legal enactment. This is no curtailment of competitive action, but a determination of the manner in which it shall take place. If the law says that no child shall be employed in factories, the plane of competition is raised to the grade of adult labor. If married women are refused employment, the nature of competition is again changed, but competition is not restricted. As the result of such legislation some of the evils of the present system would disappear, while all the benefits of individual action would yet be conserved to society.

This, then, is one defense of interference on the part of the state. It lies within its proper functions to determine the character of such competitive action as shall take place. There must be conformity of action between competitors, and the only question is whether the best or the worst men shall set the fashion. One cannot be neutral with regard to this question. No vote at all is a negative vote; and a vote in the negative is as positive in its results as one in the affirmative. Should the state insist on following the rule of non-interference, society cannot hope to adjust its productive processes to the best possible form of organization.

We have all of us, doubtless, heard the claim that the state is a moral agency; that it is imposed with moral duties. For a number of years after this phrase came to my notice, it presented to my mind no distinct meaning. It seemed to me to cover the philanthropic purpose of shallow intellects, and to be most frequently used by men who knew not the way of guile nor anything else for certain. But properly understood this phrase contains a deep truth of social philosophy. It does not mean that the law is a schoolmaster coercing men to be good, nor that it is the depository of a social ideal to be admired; but, on the contrary, it means that the law is an agency for the realization of the higher ideals of men by guarding them from that competition which would otherwise force them to at lower plane of action, or else force them out of business. In performing such a duty the state performs a moral function, for it regulates competition to the demands of the social conscience. Under the guiding influence of such a thought the immediate interests of the individual may be made to coincide, in some degree, with the fundamental interests of society, and thus, by disregarding the dogma of laissez-faire, the fundamental purpose of those formulating the doctrine is in part realized.

C. PRICE-FIXING BY AUTHORITY

75. The Statute of Laborers"

Edward to the Reverend Father in Christ, William, Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England, greeting. Because a great part of the people, and especially of workmen and servants, have lately died in the pestilence, many seeing the necessities of masters and great scarcity of servants, will not serve unless they may receive excessive wages, and others preferring to beg in idleness rather than by labor to get their living; we, considering the grievous incommodities which of the lack especially of ploughmen and such laborers may hereafter come, have upon deliberation with the prelates and the nobles and learned men assisting us, with their unanimous counsel ordained:

That every man and woman of our realm of England, of what condition he be, free or bond, able in body, and within the age of sixty years, not living in merchandising, nor exercising any craft, nor having of his own whereof he may live, nor land of his own about whose tillage he may occupy himself, and not serving any other; if he be required to serve in suitable service, his estate considered, he shall be required to serve him which shall so require him; 'Adapted from Statutes of the Realm, 307–308 (about 1349).

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