Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of Ethics Part 22

LIBERTY AND LAW

WE have spoken of the practical defects and dangers inherent in the various proposals that look to the rectification of industrial wrongs.

But there is one source of opposition to these proposals that requires more extended consideration-the fear that they-and especially socialism-unduly threaten that ideal of personal liberty which our fathers so pa.s.sionately served and we have come to look upon as the cornerstone of our prosperity. What is this ideal of liberty, and how should it affect our efforts at industrial regeneration? What are the essential aspects of the ideal of liberty? Throughout a long stretch of human history one of the most vexing obstacles to general happiness and progress has been the irresponsible power of sovereigns and oligarchies. To generations it has seemed that if freedom from selfish tyranny could but be won, the millennium would be at hand. Our heroes have been those who fought against despots for the rights of the people; we measure progress by such milestones as the Magna Charta, the French Revolution, the American Declaration of Independence. To this day we engrave the word "liberty" on our coins; and the converging mult.i.tudes from Europe look up eagerly to the great statue that welcomes them in New York Harbor and symbolizes for them the freedom that they have often suffered so much to gain. In Mrs. Hemans's hymn, in Patrick Henry's famous speech, in Mary Antin's wonderful autobiography, The Promised Land, we catch glimpses of that devotion to liberty which, it is now said, we are jeopardizing by our increasing ma.s.s of legislative restraints and propose to banish for good and all by an indefinite increase in the powers of the State. More than a generation ago Mill wrote: "There is in the world at large an increasing inclination to stretch unduly the powers of society over the individual, both by the force of opinion and even by that of legislation; and as the tendency of all the changes taking place in the world is to strengthen society, and diminish the power of the individual, this encroachment is not one of the evils which tend spontaneously to disappear, but, on the contrary, to grow more and more formidable."[Footnote: Essay on Liberty, Introductory.] Not a few observers today are reiterating this note of alarm with increasing emphasis. Are their fears well founded? We may at once agree in applauding the liberty worship of our fathers and of our contemporaries in the more backward countries. No secure steps in civilization can be taken until liberty of body, of movement, and of possession are guaranteed; there must be no fear of arbitrary execution, arrest, or confiscation. To this must be added liberty of conscience, of speech, and of worship; the right of free a.s.sembly, a free press, and that "freedom to worship G.o.d" that the Pilgrims sought. Wherever these rights, so fundamental to human happiness, are impugned, "Liberty!"

is still the fitting rallying-cry.[Footnote: The exact limits within which freedom of speech must be allowed are debatable, (a) Speech which incites to crime, to lawbreaking, to s.e.xual and other vice, must be prevented; and (b) slander, the public utterance of grossly disparaging statements concerning any person, without reasonable evidence of their truth. May we attempt to stifle the utterance of (c) such other untruths as are inexcusable in the light of our common knowledge? There are certainly many matters where there is no longer room for legitimate difference of opinion; and the general diffusion of correct knowledge is greatly r.e.t.a.r.ded by the silly utterances of uninformed people. Yet to draw the line here is so difficult that we must probably tolerate this evil forever rather than run the risk of stifling some generally unsuspected truth.] rights are safely won; the danger now is rather of abusing them. We must not forget that liberty is only a means, not an end in itself, to be restricted in so far as may be necessary for the greatest happiness. From our discussion in Part II it should be clear that there are no "natural rights" which the community is bound to respect; liberty must be granted the individual so far, and only so far, as it does not impede the general welfare. We do not hesitate to end the liberty, or even to take the life, of those we deem dangerous to society. We do not hesitate to confiscate the land which we deem necessary for a highway or railroad or public building. Indeed, we hedge personal liberty about with a thousand restrictions by general consent, in the realization that public interests must come before private. We have no need to discuss the doctrine of anarchism [Footnote: For an eloquent defense of anarchism see Tolstoy's writings; here is a sample statement: "For a Christian to promise to subject himself to any government whatsoever-a subjection which may be considered the foundation of state life-is a direct negation of Christianity." (Kingdom of G.o.d, chap. IX.) Cf. this utterance of one of the Chicago anarchists of 1886. "Whoever prescribes a rule of action for another to obey is a tyrant: usurper, and an enemy of liberty."]- unrestricted liberty since the general chaos that would result there from, in the present stage of human nature, is sufficiently apparent.

Liberty can never be absolute. Indeed, there has been a curious reversal of situation. The older cry of liberty that stirs us was a cry of the oppressed ma.s.ses against their masters; now it is a slogan of the privileged upper cla.s.ses against that increasing popular legislation which restricts their powers. Kings are now but figureheads, if they linger at all, in our modern democracies; governments are not irresponsible masters of the people, they are instruments for carrying out the popular will. The real tyrants now, those whose irresponsible authority is dangerous to the ma.s.ses, are the kings of industry; if the cry of "liberty" is to be raised again, it should be raised, according to all historical precedent, in behalf of the slaves of modern industry rather than in behalf of the fortunate few who give up so grudgingly the practical powers they have usurped.

There were those, indeed, who fought pa.s.sionately for the divine right of kings, those who died to maintain the right of a white man to hold Negroes as slaves; there are those today who with a truly religious fervor uphold the right of the capitalistic cla.s.s to manage the industries of the country at their own sweet will, unhampered by such legislative restrictions as the majority may deem expedient for the general welfare. But it is a travesty on the sacred word "liberty"

that it should be thus invoked to uphold the prerogatives of the favored few. Liberty, in the sense in which it is properly an ideal for man, connotes the right to all such forms of activity as are consonant with the greatest general happiness, and to no others. It implies the right not to be oppressed, not the right to oppress. Mere freedom of contract is not real freedom, if the alternative be to starve; such formal freedom may be practical slavery. The real freedom is freedom to live as befits a man; and it is precisely because such freedom is beyond the grasp of mult.i.tudes today that our system of "free contract" is discredited; it offers the name of liberty without the reality. But apart from this questionable appeal to the ideal of liberty, there are not a few who sincerely believe, on grounds of practical expediency, that legislation ought not to interfere any more than proves absolutely necessary with the conduct of industry. This scheme of individualism we will now consider.

The ideal of individualism. The individualistic, or laissez-faire, ideal dates perhaps from Rousseau and the French doctrinaires; its best-known representatives in English speech are Mill and Spencer.

Dewey and Tufts have pithily expressed it as follows: "The moral end of political inst.i.tutions and measures is the maximum possible freedom of the individual consistent with his not interfering with like freedom on the part of other individuals."[Footnote: Ethics, p. 483.] Its leading arguments may be presented and answered, summarily, as follows:

(1) Legislation has so often been mischievous that it is well to have as little of it as possible. The ma.s.ses are uneducated, the prey of impulse and pa.s.sion; politics are corrupt; to submit the genius of free ENTREPRENEURS to the clumsy and ill-fitted yoke of a popularly wrought legal control is to stifle their enterprise and interfere with their chances of success. After all, every one knows his own needs best; and if we leave people alone, they will secure their own welfare better than if we try to dictate to them how they shall seek it. "Out of the fourteen thousand odd acts which, in our own country, have been repealed, from the date of the Statute of Merton down to 1872 . . .

how many have been repealed because they were mischievous? . . . Suppose that only three thousand of these acts were abolished after proved injuries had been caused, which is a low estimate. What shall we say of these three thousand acts which have been hindering human happiness and increasing human misery; now for years, now for generations, now for centuries?"[Footnote: H. Spencer, Principles of Ethics, part IV, sec. 131.] But to admit that much legislation has been blundering is not to admit that the principle of social control is wrong. Our political system must, indeed, be made must be placed in the way of overhasty and ill-considered lawmaking. But it is not always true that the individual is the best judge of his own ultimate interests; and it is demonstrably untrue that the pursuit by each of what he deems best for himself will bring the greatest happiness for all. The stronger and more favorably situated will take advantage of their position and resources; the weaker, though theoretically free, will in reality be under the handicap of poverty, ignorance, hunger. Such a system is inevitably vicious in its moral effects. To say that in a popular government legislation cannot properly standardize practice, cannot formulate a higher code of public morality than men can be depended upon to attain if unrestrained, is unwarrantably to discredit democracy.

If the laws are bad, improve them. If the public is uneducated, educate it. If our system gives us poor lawmakers, change the system. But to give up the attempt at legal control, to leave things as they are or rather, to leave them to go from bad to worse, is unthinkable.

(2) Too much legislation stifles individuality, drags genius down to the dead level of average ideas, tends to produce an unprogressive uniformity of practice. It imposes the conceptions of the past upon the future. "If the measures have any effect at all, the effect must in part be that of causing some likeness among the individuals; to deny this is to deny that the process of molding is operative. But in so far as uniformity results advance is r.e.t.a.r.ded. Every one who has studied the order of nature knows that without variety there can be no progress."[Footnote: H. Spencer, op. cit, sec. 138.] "Persons of genius, it is true, are, and are always likely to be, a small minority; but in order to have them it is necessary to preserve the soil in which they grow. Genius can only breathe freely in an atmosphere of freedom. ... It is important to give the freest scope possible to uncustomary things, in order that it may in time appear which of these are fit to be converted into customs." [Footnote: J. S. Mill, On Liberty, chap. III.] But the intention of social legislation is to check only such individual action as is demonstrably detrimental; the uniformity produced will be only a uniform absence of flagrant wrongs and adoption of such positive precautions as will make the detection and checking of these harmful acts easy. Beyond this minimum uniformity (which, however, must include an enormous number of details, so manifold have the possibilities of wrongdoing become) there will on any system be ample range for the development of new methods and processes. Whatever danger there once was in choking individual initiative by needlessly paralyzing restrictions, will be, in the long run, negligible in an age of omnivorous reading and free discussion, and in a land whose conscious ideal is improvement, new invention, progress. As a matter of fact, it is chiefly through legislation that new methods of social practice become diffused. Each of our forty-eight States is experimenting in social guidance, trying to thwart this or that sin, to remedy this or that wrong, to work out a plan by which men can happily cooperate in our complex public life. The process of evolving an efficient and frictionless social machine, instead of being r.e.t.a.r.ded by this activity of lawmaking, is actually accelerated thereby. Private business tends to fall into ruts; and one man's ideals are blocked by lack of cooperation from others. Legislation tends not only to preserve the best of past experiments; but, goaded by the zeal of reformers, and pushed by political parties, to drag complacent and inert individuals along new and untried paths. The greatest field for genius lies today in devising successful constructive legislation; and the greatest hope for progress in this era of mutual dependence lies in the winning of a majority for some social scheme that must be generally adopted if at all.

(3) Laws, however beneficent, which rise above the general conscience of the people are undesirable; character should precede legislation.

"To conform to custom, merely as custom, does not educate or develop in [a man] any of the qualities which are the distinctive endowment of a human being. . . . He who does anything because it is the custom makes no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or in desiring what is best. The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used. . . . It is possible that he might be guided in some good path, and kept out of harm's way, without [using his own judgment, powers of decision, self control, etc.] But what will be his comparative worth as a human being? It really is of importance, not only what men do, but also what manner of men they are that do it." [Footnote: J. S. Mill, op. cit, chap. III.] A little common sense will show us, however, that there are, and always will be, plenty of occasions for exercising our moral muscle, however closely we hedge in the field of legitimate activity. p.r.o.ne to temptation as men are, and beset by a thousand wrong impulses, we may well seek to block this and that path of possible wrongdoing without fear of turning them mechanically into saints. On the contrary, we should hasten to use the experience of the past to avert needless temptations from the men of the future.

Our experience has been costly enough; and if it has revealed its lessons too late to save contemporary social life, at least it should serve as warning for our sons. To sacrifice right conduct to moral gymnastics is to set up the means as more important than the end; every good act that can be lifted from the plane of moral struggle and put securely on the plane of habit is a step in human progress, and leaves men freer to grapple with the remaining temptations. If you wish to educate men up to a law, put it upon the statute books if you can, compel attention to it and discussion of the reasons pro and con, show its practical workings; it is far easier to educate conscience up to an existing law than beyond it. Moreover, it must be said that those who prefer to see men left to think things out anew for themselves, without the restraint and guidance of the law, show a singular callousness toward those whom their action, if they choose wrongly, will hurt. If we could trust men to choose aright-but we cannot; and men must be protected against their own stupidity and weakness, and that of others, by the collective wisdom and will.

(4) Individualism makes for prosperity. Offering a fair chance to all, it brings the best to the top; the fittest survive, and win the positions of power; the community as a whole is, then, in the end advantaged. "Free compet.i.tion in profits coordinates industrial efficiency and industrial reward.This is equality of opportunity, through which every man is rewarded according to his worth to the consumer." [Footnote: F. Y. Gladney, in the Outlook, vol. 101, p. 261.] Unfortunately, however, it is those who are fittest to serve not the community but their own interests that have the best chance to survive-the clever, the privileged, the unscrupulous. Nor is there equality of opportunity where some will not play fair and others have a long start. The individualistic struggle makes for the selection of a type of greedy, self-centered man, with little sense of social responsibility. Even granted that the men who reach the top are the men best fitted to manage the industries of the country, this method of selection of leaders is too wasteful of strength, too hard on the unsuccessful, to be generally profitable. The prosperity of modern industry is due not primarily to its chaotic plan of individual effort and cross-purposes, but to the measure of cooperation we have nevertheless attained, with its consequent division and specialization of labor and large-scale production, aided by the extraordinary development of invention and machinery. The ideal of legal control.

The epoch of ultra individualism, of what Huxley called "administrative nihilism," is rapidly pa.s.sing. Jane Addams speaks of "the inadequacy of those eighteenth-century ideals the breakdown of the machinery which they provided," pointing out that "that worldly wisdom which counsels us to know life as it is" discounts the a.s.sumption "that if only the people had freedom they would walk continuously in the paths of justice and righteousness." [Footnote: Newer Ideals of Peace, pp.

31-32.] H. G. Wells remarks, "We do but emerge now from a period of deliberate happy- go-lucky and the influence of Herbert Spencer, who came near raising public shiftlessness to the dignity of a natural philosophy. Everything would adjust itself-if only it was left alone."

[Footnote: Social Forces in England and America, p. 80.] It is becoming clear that we cannot trust to education and the conscience of individuals to right matters, not only because as yet we provide no moral education of any consequence for our youth, but because, if we did, the temptations in a world where every man is free to grab for himself would still be almost irresistible. But there are two positive arguments for the extension of legal control that clinch the matter:

(1) Without the support of the law it is often impossible for the conscientious man to act in a purely social spirit. The compet.i.tion of those who are less answerable to moral motives forces him to lower his own ideals if he would not see his business ruined. The employer of child labor in one factory cannot afford to hire adults, at their higher wage, until all the other factories give up the cheaper labor also. Where sweatshop labor produces cheap clothing for some manufacturers, the more scrupulous are undersold. One employer cannot, unless he is unusually prosperous, raise the wages of his employees or shorten their hours until his compet.i.tors do likewise. Improvement of conditions must take place all along the line or not at all. And since unanimous voluntary consent is practically impossible to obtain, and of precarious duration if obtained, the legal enforcement of common standards is necessitated.

(2) Men generally are willing to bind themselves by law to higher codes than they will live up to if not bound. In their reflective moments, when they are deciding how to vote, temptations are less insistent and ideals stronger than when they are confronting concrete situations.

To vote for a law which will restrain others, and incidentally one's self, comes easier than to make a purely personal sacrifice that leaves general practice unaltered. To realize that this is true, we need but look at the remarkable ethical gains made now year by year through laws voted for by many of the very men whose practice had hitherto been upon a lower moral level. Very many evils that once seemed fastened upon society have been thus legislated out of existence.[Footnote: For a vivid picture of earlier industrial conditions which would not now be tolerated, see Charles Reade's Put Yourself in His Place.] And if the industrial situation still seems wretched, it is because, in our swift advance, new evils are arising about as fast as older evils are eradicated. The law necessarily lags behind the spread of abuses, so that "there will probably always be a running duel between anti-social action and legislation designed to check it. Novel methods of corruption will constantly require novel methods of correction . .

But this constant development of the law should make corrupt practices increasingly difficult for the less gifted rascals who must always const.i.tute the great majority of would-be offenders." [Footnote: R. C. Brooks, Corruption in American Politics and Life, p. 99.] The law can never, of course, cover the whole field of human conduct; it represents, in Stevenson's phrase," that modic.u.m of morality which can be squeezed out of the rock of mankind." Unnecessary extension of the law is c.u.mbersome, expensive, and provocative of impatience and rebellion. Moreover, there is always some minimum of danger of injustice in attempting legal constraint; the law itself, as approved by the majority, may be unfair, or its application to the concrete case may be unfair. The individualists are right in feeling that men must be left alone, wherever the possible results are not too dangerous.

But no hard-and-fast line can be drawn between activities that must be left free and those which must be regulated. Such apparently personal matters as the use of opium or alcohol must be checked because the general happiness is, in the end, greatly and obviously enhanced by such restraint. But there will always be, beyond the law, a wide field for the satisfaction of personal tastes and the practice of generosity.

There is no double standard; if an act is legally right and morally wrong, that simply means that it lies beyond the boundaries of the limited field which the law covers. The extension of that field is a matter of practical expediency in each type of situation; beyond that field, but working to the same ends, the forces of education and public opinion are alone available. [Footnote: For a discussion of this point, see F. Paulsen, System of Ethics, book III, chap. IX, sec.

9. International Journal of Ethics, vol. 18, p. 18.] Should existing laws always be obeyed? Year by year we are extending our network of laws over human conduct; more and more pertinent becomes the them?

and the further question, Are there times when the law may be rightly disobeyed? We shall discuss the second question first. It is obvious that our whole social structure rests upon the willingness of the people to obey the law. The watchword of republics should be, not "liberty," but "obedience"; their gravest danger now is not tyranny, but anarchy. We must individually submit with patience and good temper to the decisions of the majority, even if we disapprove those decisions. We must abide by the rules of the game until we can get the rules changed. And all changes must be effected according to the rules agreed upon for effecting changes. This law-abiding spirit is the great triumph of democracy; only so long as it exists can popular government stand. Though it be slower and exacting of greater effort and skill, evolution, not revolution, is the method of permanent progress. We must, then, band together against any groups that, in their impatience of reform or opposition to the common will, cast aside the restraints of law. However dearly we may long for woman's suffrage, we must sternly repress those excited suffragettes who would gain this end by defiance of law and destruction of property; even if they further their particular cause by their violence-which is highly doubtful-they do it at the expense of something still more precious, the preservation of the law-abiding spirit. Other organizations will not be slow to profit by the lesson of their success; and we shall have Heaven knows how many causes seeking to attain their ends by destructiveness and resistance. Similarly, the more serious and menacing rebellion of labor against law must be firmly controlled; much as we may sympathize with their grievances, we cannot countenance the attempt to remedy them by violence. The Industrial Workers of the World, with action, [Footnote: Cf, in a pamphlet issued by them: "The I.W.W. will get the results sought with the least expenditure of time and energy. The tactics used are determined solely by the power of the organization to make good in their use". The question of 'right' and 'wrong' does not concern us. In short, the I.W.W. advocates the use of militant 'direct action'

tactics to the full extent of our power to make them." (Quoted in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 109, p. 703.)] have made themselves enemies of society. The advocates of "sabotage," the "reds" in the socialist camp, the preachers of practical anarchism, must be treated as among the most dangerous of criminals. On the other hand, the spread of the spirit of lawlessness among the lower cla.s.ses should serve to warn the upper cla.s.ses that present social conditions will not much longer be endured.[Footnote: Cf. Ettor (quoted in Outlook, vol. 101, p. 340): "They tell us to get what we want by the ballot. They want us to play the game according to the established rules. But the rules were made by the capitalists. THEY have laid down the laws of the game. THEY hold the pick of the cards. We never can win by political methods.

The right of suffrage is the greatest hoax of history. Direct action is the only way."] There is a great deal of idealism among the advocates of violence;[Footnote: Cf, for example, Giovannitti's poem, The Cage, in the Atlantic Monthly, June, 1913.] there is a great deal of sympathy on the part of the public with lawless strikers, with the I.W.W. gangs that have recently invaded city churches, with all those under-dogs who are now determining to have a share in the good things of life.

Unless the employing and governing cla.s.ses meet their demands halfway, gunpowder and dynamite pretty surely lie ahead. Will the spirit of lawlessness spread? Ought we to slacken our process of lawmaking lest we make the yoke too hard to bear? As a matter of fact, it is through more laws, better laws, and a better mechanism for punishing infraction of laws, that we can hope to check lawlessness. Lynching-as we noted in chapter XXV-have been the product of inadequate legislation and judicial procedure; as our laws against the worst crimes become sharper, our police forces more efficient, and our court trials quicker and less hampered by technicalities, they decrease in number. As education on the liquor question spreads, violations of prohibition laws become fewer. The kind of lawlessness that is on the increase is that which exists as a protest against and a means of remedying evils that the laws have not yet properly dealt with. Give us by law an industrial code that will minimize the exploitation of the weak by the strong, bringing a good measure of security and comfort to all, and such outrages as those of the McNamara brothers will cease, or at worst will be merely sporadic and generally condemned. Allow present conditions to drift on without sharp legal guidance, and such outrages will certainly become more and more numerous. The alternative that confronts the modern world is plainly evolution by law or revolution by violence. Individualism: J. S. Mill, On Liberty. H. Spencer, Principles of Ethics, part iv, chaps, XXV-XXIX; Social Statics; and many other writings. J. H. Levy, The Outcome of Individualism. Various publications of the British Personal Rights a.s.sociation. W.

Donisthorpe, Individualism. W. Fite, Individualism, lect. IV. Legal control: Florence Kelley, Some Ethical Gains through Legislation. Jane Addams, Newer Ideals of Peace. E. A. Ross, Social Control, chap. x.x.xI.

D. S. Ritchie, Principles of State Interference. J. W. Jenks, Government Action for Social Welfare. A. V. Dicey, Law and Opinion.

J. Seth, Study of Ethical Principles, pp. 297-331. H. C. Potter, Relation of the Individual to the Industrial Situation, chap. VI. W. J. Brown, Underlying Principles of Modern Legislation. Journal of Philosophy, Psychology, and Scientific Methods, vol. 10, p. 113. A. T. Hadley, Freedom and Responsibility. J. W. Garner, Introduction to Political Science, chaps, IX, X. Edmond Kelly, Evolution and Effort. Lawlessness: Atlantic Monthly, vol. 109, p. 441. Outlook, vol. 98, p. 12; vol. 99, p. 901; vol. 100, p. 359. J. G. Brooks, American Syndicalism.

CHAPTER XXIX

EQUALITY AND PRIVILEGE

All men, our Declaration of Independence tells us, are created free and equal-that is, with a right to freedom and equality. They are not actually equal in natural gifts, but they ought, so far as possible, to be made equal in opportunity; equality is not a fact, but an ideal.

And as an ideal it comes sometimes into conflict with its twin ideal of liberty; the freedom of the stronger must be curtailed when it robs the weaker of their fair share of happiness; but, on the other hand, a dead level of equality must not be sought at the sacrifice of the potentialities for the general good that lie in the free play of individuality. The various projects for securing a greater equality among men must be scrutinized with an eye to their total effects upon human happiness.

What flagrant forms of inequality exist in our society?

Equality is a modern ideal; in former times it was generally a.s.sumed that men inevitably belong to cla.s.ses or castes; that some must have luxury and others poverty, some must rule and others obey. Plato, in constructing his ideal state, retains the walls between the small governing cla.s.s, the warriors, and the ma.s.s of artisans, who are of no particular account but to get the work done. Castiglione, in his Book of the Courtier, declares that "there are many men who, although they are rational creatures, have only such share of reason as to recognize it, but not to possess or profit by it. These, therefore, are naturally slaves, and it is better and more profitable for them to obey than to command."

But the invention of the printing press brought ideas to the ma.s.ses, the invention of gunpowder brought them power; the colonization of new continents leveled old distinctions of rank; the development of manufacture and commerce brought fortune and power to men of humble origin. The forces thus set in motion have resulted in our day in the general acceptance of political democracy witness in contemporary affairs the inception of the Portuguese Republic, the Chinese Republic, the abolition of the veto-power of the British House of Lords-and are creating a widespread belief in industrial democracy. So complete is our American acquiescence in the principle of equality in the abstract that it is difficult for us to realize the burning pa.s.sions that underlay such familiar words as Don Quixote's, "Know, Sancho, that one man is no more than another unless he does more than another"; or Burns's "A man's a man for a' that"; or Tennyson's " 'Tis only n.o.ble to be good."

Yet, for all our abstract belief in equality, we have not become equal in opportunity, and in some ways are actually becoming less so. Land, for example, which was once to be had for the taking, is steadily rising in price, and is now, in most parts of the country, getting beyond the reach of the poor. Foreign observers agree that there is no other existing nation so plutocratic as our own; and wealth here is probably though the matter is in doubt becoming more and more concentrated. [Footnote: For a recent and cautious discussion of this point see F. W. Taussig, Principles of Economics, chap. 54, sec. 3.

There is really no accurate information available to settle the question whether wealth is becoming more or less concentrated.

Certainly the number of the rich has rapidly increased, and very many of the poor have risen into the cla.s.s of the well to do. Wages and the scale of living of the poor have risen, but not in proportion to the total increase in wealth. The rich seem to be not only getting richer, but getting a larger SHARE of the national wealth.] It is estimated that one per cent of the inhabitants of our country now own more property than the remaining ninety-nine per cent.

The natural resources of the country have been to a considerable extent such natural monopolies as railways, telegraph and telephone service, gas and electric lighting, are controlled by, and largely in the interests of, a small owning cla.s.s. The Astors have become enormously rich because one of their progenitors bought for an inconsiderable sum farm land on Manhattan Island which is now worth so many dollars a square foot. Others have made gigantic fortunes out of the country's forests, its coal deposits, its copper, its waterpower, its oil. A certain upper stratum of society is freed from the necessity of work, can exercise vast power over the lives of the poor, and use its great acc.u.mulations for personal luxury or at its caprice, in defiance of the general welfare. Such congestion of wealth involves poverty on the part of ma.s.ses of the less fortunate. With no capital, the poor man cannot compete in the industrial game; he has no money to invest, no reserve to fall back upon; he must accept employers' terms or starve.

He cannot pause to educate himself, to get the skill and knowledge that might enable him to work up the ladder. His power in politics is overshadowed by that of the great corporations with their funds and their control of legal skill. He cannot afford expert medical care, or proper hygienic conditions of life; he is lucky if he can get a measure of justice in the courts. To call such a situation one of equality is irony. It is certain that, far as we are yet from final solution of the problems of production, we are still farther from a solution of the problems of the distribution of wealth. "A new and fair division of the goods and rights of this world should be," De Tocqueville long ago declared, "the main object of all who conduct human affairs." What methods of equalizing opportunity are possible?

Three plans for a fairer distribution of wealth have been proposed.

According to one, the profits from industry would be divided among the population on a basis of their NEEDS. This is, however, clearly impracticable; every one, would discover unlimited needs, and no one would be fit to make the apportionment. The second scheme is that all men should be paid alike for equal hours of work, or, rather, in proportion to the disagreeableness of the work, the amount of SACRIFICE made. This scheme is that usually advocated by Socialists.

The objection to it is that equal pay for every man would take away the chief stimulus to initiative, skill, energy, efficiency; it would take the zest and excitement out of the game of life, make living too monotonous; there must be rewards for the ambitious youth, prizes to be won. The third plan proportions reward to efficiency. And on the whole, as men are const.i.tuted, it seems desirable to reward men financially according to their efficiency, so far as that can be measured.[Footnote: F. W. Taussig, Principles of Economics, chap. 64, sec. 3.] This does not mean to leave things as they are. For at present the shrewd, if also fortunate, are rewarded out of all proportion to their efficiency; and many who are not efficient at all, who even do no work at all that is socially useful, are among the wealthiest.

Moreover, efficiency itself is only partly due to the individual's will and effort; it is due to the physique and gifts and fortune he has inherited, the education and environment that have molded him, the social situation in which he finds himself, the willingness of others to cooperate with him, and his good luck in early ventures.

It seems unfair that to him that hath so much, so much more should be given. Or at least it seems fair that he that hath less should be given more favorable opportunity. It is not enough, as Professor Giddings says, to reward every man according to his performance; we must find a way to enable every man to achieve his potential performance. The plan of proportioning rewards to efficiency must be modified by mercy for the weak-minded and weak-bodied. It must be supplemented by earnest efforts to provide health, education, and favorable environment for all, and, by the limitation of the right of inheritance, that all may have, so far as possible, approximately equal opportunity. It must beware of judging efficiency by immediate and obvious results, must encourage inventions that ripen slowly, genius that stumbles and blunders before succeeding, work that contributes to others' results and makes no showing for itself. It must involve a restriction of the right to unearned incomes. To put these necessary corollaries to the efficiency- reward plan into concrete form:

(1) The handicap of ignorance must be removed by providing free education for all, to the point of enabling every one to develop efficiency in some vocation. Scholarships for the needy, the prohibition of child labor, and a high enough wage scale for adults to permit the youth of all cla.s.ses to complete their education, are indispensable.

(2) The handicap of ill-health must be, so far as possible, removed by state support of mothers-so that children need not inherit a weakened const.i.tution from overtired mothers, or suffer from want of care in infancy; by free medical aid to all; by strict legislation for sanitary housing, pure food, etc; by the provision of public parks and playgrounds.

(3) The possibility of exorbitant profits from industry (profits out of proportion to the actual contribution of the individual in skillful work, mental or manual) must be abolished, by one of the plans discussed in chapter XXVII.

(4) There must be abolition or sharp limitation of unearned incomes i.e., incomes for which a return to society in service has not been made by the getter. This is the step that is clearest of all theoretically, but the worst sticking point in practice. If we could persuade men that they should not reap where they have not sown, the gravest inequities of our present order would disappear. The sources of unearned incomes are, first, the "unearned increment"

in land values; secondly, the "unearned increment" in the value of natural resources; thirdly, all interest on investment; fourthly, all wealth inherited or obtained by legacy or gift.

(a) Land in the heart of New York or London sells at fifteen million dollars or so an acre. The land value of Manhattan Island alone, the central part of New York City, is in the neighborhood of $3,500,000,000, and rapidly increasing. A few generations ago it was all bought from the Indians for $24. It is estimated that the "unearned increment" of land values in Berlin during fifty years has been between $500,000,000 and $750,000,000. What is true so strikingly in the case of these great cities is true, in lesser degree, of all cities and towns and villages that have grown in population. The total increase in land values in America since the days of the pioneers equals, of course, the present value of its land, since it was acquired by our forefathers without payment, or with only a nominal fee to the Indians.

Almost all of this enormous increase in wealth has gone into the pockets of the fortunate individuals who got possession; very little into the public treasury. Our cities have remained terribly poor, always in debt, obliged to pa.s.s by many needed improvements and to impose heavy taxes on their citizens. Yet all this wealth (not counting improvements made by the possessor upon his land) has been socially created. Others have moved into the neighborhood, factories have been built near by, roads and railways and sewers and water systems and lighting-systems and police protection, and a hundred other things, have made the individual's land more and more salable. If our fathers had been wise enough to divert a large percentage of this increase in value into the public coffers, no one would have been wronged, but many private fortunes would today be smaller, and the entire population could have been free from taxation from the beginning, with plenty of money for all needed public works, including many that we can now only dream about.

It is easy to see what could have been done; to determine what should now be done is far more difficult. To try to regain for the public the unearned increments of past years would be an injustice to those who have purchased lands recently, at the increased prices, and even, perhaps, to those who have benefited by the increasing values, since they have regarded the increase as theirs and adjusted their expenditures to this added income. The best that could be done would be to take an inventory of all land values now, and provide for a recurrent reappraisal; then to take all, or a large percentage, of the increased value from now on. It would, indeed, be dangerous to attempt to take it all, on account of the extreme difficulty of drawing the line between earned and unearned increments; even the most painstaking and impartial decisions would be sometimes unjust. But to take half or two thirds of what should be deemed "unearned" would be practicable. Several modern States now take from ten to fifty per cent; and the percentage taken will doubtless increase. The objections to such a course are twofold. In the first place, it is pointed out that if the unearned increment of value is appropriated by the State, the State should recoup landowners for all undeserved decrements of value; it is not fair to take away the possibility of gain and leave the possibility of loss. So long, however, as our population grows, the State could afford to make good the comparatively few cases of decreased value and yet get a big income. The other objection is that the hope of winning the increased land values has been a great and needed incentive to the development of the country, and a legitimate compensation for the hardships of pioneering. But while this is true of the earlier days, it applies less and less to present conditions, and is hardly at all applicable to the profits made in city lands.

On the whole, there seems little objection to the appropriation by the State henceforth of the unearned increments of land value. But the days of enormous increments are pa.s.sing, and land will presently reach a comparatively stable value. So that this method of preventing inflated fortunes must be counted, on the whole except for new and rapidly growing communities a lost opportunity. [Footnote: H. J.

Davenport, State and Local Taxation, pp. 294-303. F. C. Howe, European Cities at Work, pp. 189-207. Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 22, p. 83; vol. 25, p. 682; vol. 27, p. 539. Political Science Quarterly, vol. 27, p. 586. National Munic.i.p.al Review, vol. 3, p. 354. F. W.

Taussig, Principles of Economics, chap. 44, sec. 5.]

(b) What is true of land is true of the natural resources of the country-coal, minerals, oil, gas, waterpower, forests. These were seized, with a small payment or none, by the early comers, and sold later at a great advance, or worked for an increasing profit by the owner. Here, again, if the nation had maintained an inventory of these values and appropriated to itself all or a percentage of the increase in value (which results from the increasing public need of the resources and the limited supply, together with the increase in facilities for transportation, etc, rather than from the owner's labor or skill), many of our present gross inequalities in wealth would have been forestalled, and the community would be far richer in its common wealth. Add to the realization of this fact the sight of the reckless waste by private owners of such resources as can be wasted, and the present conservation movement is fully explained. The best that can now be done is to retain under government ownership such natural resources as have not yet pa.s.sed into private hands, and to appropriate further increases in value of those that are privately owned. [Footnote: C. R. Van Hise, Concentration and Control, pp. 154-66. Outlook, vol.

85, p. 426; vol. 86, p. 716; vol. 93, p. 770; vol. 95, p. 21.]

(c) Practically all of the upper cla.s.ses add to the incomes they earn by labor of hands or brain an "unearned" income derived from investment; i.e., from the willingness of others to pay for the use of their acc.u.mulated wealth or lands. A considerable cla.s.s is thus enabled, if it chooses, to live without working. A great proportion of this wealth that draws interest was never itself earned by the possessors, in the stricter sense of the word "earned"; it has come to them by inheritance, by the increase of value of land or natural resources, or squeezed out of labor and the public by the unregulated profits of some autocratically managed industry or franchise. Is it expedient to allow this acc.u.mulated wealth to bring an income to its possessors?

There are two possibilities: one goes with government control of private industry, the other with industrial socialism.

According to the first plan, income might still be derived from money in savings banks, from stocks and bonds, and from the rent of land and buildings. But it would cease to be a serious source of inequality.