The Principles of Economics Part 32

In nearly all wagers, judgment in some degree influences the choice of sides. One man bets on a horse whose pedigree and performances he knows thoroughly; another judges by the horse's appearance as it comes upon the track. The professional book-makers have the latest possible and most exact information on which to base their bids.

In the bets made on one's own prowess, as on speed in running or rowing, or in playing cards (wherein also the element of pure chance is mingled) the chance-taking is still far over on the uneconomic side of the border-line. The running is for the sake of the wager, not for a useful purpose. A premium won by a runner for speed in delivering a message of economic importance is in striking contrast to the winnings in a wager.

Finally, the very border-line of difficulty is reached in the purchase and sale of goods in the market with a view of profiting by chance changes in price. Land speculation, the purchasing and holding of lumber, grain, cattle, and other tangible and useful things, must be judged liberally. The quality of gambling depends somewhat on the motive as well as on the ability of the actor. The enterpriser dealing with real wealth, and fitted to take the risks, both because of his resources and of his exceptional knowledge, needs the motive of gain, and in a sense can be said to earn socially what he gets. The motive of the uninformed must be a blind trust in luck, and a hope to gain from a rise in prices which they are quite unable to foresee or rationally to explain.

[Sidenote: Gambling an economic loss to society]

4. _In its relation to value, a bet, or wager, is the exchange of the chance of loss for the chance of gain, involving a social loss._ Even when fairest, the average results of such an exchange must be unfavorable to society. One person loses a part of his income that gratifies relatively urgent wants; another gains something that gratifies only less urgent wants than were represented by the sum he risked. The area that is subtracted from the loser's psychic income is larger than the area added to the winner's psychic income. The result would be different on the impossible condition that it were always the poorer man that gained and the richer one that lost. Betting, then, does not produce wealth; it merely transfers ownership in a way that reduces the total want-gratifying power of wealth.

The effects that gambling and betting have upon character are still more important and dangerous than their effects upon income. Motives of economic activity are reduced; energy is diverted from productive enterprise; society is demoralized through dishonesty of men intoxicated by gambling; speculation and embezzlement occur; and there is a reduction both of production and of enjoyment in society. These things can be reasoned out with mathematical certainty by means of the law of marginal utility.

[Sidenote: Insurance as a wager]

5. _Insurance is, in outer form, a bet; but its essential purpose is the useful one of equalizing and eliminating chance._ In its early form insurance was a bet made by a ship-owner to protect his cargo from loss.

The chance of loss in shipping was even greater in the Middle Ages than now, and it became customary for the ship-owner to bet with a wealthy man that the ship would not return. If it did come back, the owner could afford to pay the bet; if it did not, he won his bet and thus recovered a part of his loss. It was what is called to-day "a hedge," that is, one bet made to neutralize, or offset, another. This gave to the smaller merchant the advantage of distributing his losses over a number of voyages, as was done by the owner of many vessels. Antonio, the wealthy merchant, is made thus to express his security:

"My ventures are not in one bottom trusted Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate Upon the fortune of this present year.

Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad."

Gradually there came about a specialization of risk-taking by the men most able to bear it. They could tell by experience about what was the degree of uncertainty, and could lay their wagers accordingly. When several insurers were in the same business, compet.i.tion forced them to insure the vessel and cargo of the ordinary trader for something near the percentage of risk involved. The insurance thus tended to become a mutual protection to the ship-owners; what had to be paid in premiums to cover risk came to be counted as part of the cost of carrying on that business.

[Sidenote: Insurance as mutual protection]

Modern insurance is mutual in nearly every case: the total premiums equal the total losses plus operating expenses, the interest on the reserve of premiums counting as part of the premium. Each one gets protection for the loss of his property in return for the payment of a sum that will cover the losses on others' property. Such an exchange is a profitable one. The premium comes from marginal income; the loss of house or property would fall upon the parts of income having higher marginal utility. The less urgent wants of the present are sacrificed in order to protect the income that gratifies the more urgent wants of the future. In insurance each party gives a smaller utility for a greater; each has a margin of advantage; while the greater certainty in business stimulates effort and rewards it. This is quite the opposite of the working of betting and gambling.

[Sidenote: Conditions of sound insurance]

6. _To be economically sound, insurance must have to do with real productive agents, and with somewhat regular, ascertainable events beyond the control of the insured._ The difficulties that arise in case of fire-insurance are due largely to the failure to meet these requirements. When the insured sets fire to his own buildings, fire insurance ceases to be a legitimate thing. Constant efforts are made by insurance companies to guard against these "moral risks," the least calculable of any. Merchants whose stocks have been mysteriously burned two or three times find difficulty in getting insured. In life-insurance it was the custom formerly to refuse to pay death-losses in case of suicide; but now that condition is attached only for the first two or three years. It being reasonable to suppose that no man would plan suicide years in advance, death by one's own hand some years after taking life-insurance is regarded as coming under the ordinary rule of chance.

-- II. THE SPECULATOR AS A RISK-TAKER

[Sidenote: An element of speculation in all business]

1. _Every enterpriser is to some extent specializing as a risk-taker._ This familiar idea may be taken as a starting point in discussing speculation. In its broadest sense speculation means to look into things, to examine attentively, study deeply, contemplate, meditate. In a business sense the speculator is one who studies carefully the conditions and the chances of a change of prices; hence arises the thought that speculation is connected with chance. The enterpriser can estimate these chances better than most men. He stands on a hilltop sweeping the horizon, and can see farther than the workingman can. He relieves the other agents of part of the risk, and he insures both laborer and capitalist against future fluctuations of prices. Some of the profits of successful enterprise in countries where no system of regular insurance has grown up, and in certain lines here where no insurance is possible, are speculative gains of this sort. Offsetting them, however, in large measure, are the speculative losses, by which in many cases the investment has been swept away altogether. The cautious business man tries to reduce chance as much as possible by insurance, and to confine his thought and worry to the parts of the productive process where his ability counts in the result. The wise have found out that it is better to shift the risk to some specialist who can take it better than they. For a man who has his thought and effort concentrated on running a flour-mill, it is foolish to take the risks of fire, of loss in shipment, of a rise in the price of grain needed to fill outstanding orders--it is as foolish as it would be for him to make his own machinery. Insurance being the economical way to cover risk, the reckless will, in the long run, be eliminated from the ranks of enterprisers.

[Sidenote: Specialization of risk taking]

2. _In some lines the risk of marketing and carrying large stocks becomes highly specialized, so that ordinary enterprisers shift it to a small group of risk-takers._ In buying and selling large quant.i.ties of produce there is required the closest and most exclusive attention of a small group of men. The marketing of some staple products requires the most minute acquaintance with world conditions. To foretell the price of wheat one must know the rainfall in India, the condition of the crop in Argentina, must be in touch as nearly as possible with every unit of supply that will come into the market. Such knowledge is sought by the great produce speculators in the central markets. If all means of communication--telegraph, cables, mails--are open to all, compet.i.tion among these speculators becomes intense, and the result is the extremest efficiency. Their survival depends on the development of acute insight into market conditions. It is the testimony of expert witnesses and of writers in the report of the Industrial Commission that the margin at which farm produce is sold has fallen greatly in the last few years.

These products are marketed along the lines of the least resistance, that is, of the greatest economy. The function of the commercial specialists is to foresee the markets, and to ship to the best place, at the right time, in the right quant.i.ties. If a product shipped to Liverpool will, by the time it arrives there, be worth more in Hamburg, there is a loss. Such difficult decisions can be made best by a small group of men selected by compet.i.tion. When handling actual products they perform a real economic service.

[Sidenote: Produce speculators as insurers]

[Sidenote: Source of legitimate speculators' gain]

3. _Even some mere speculators on the produce markets may and do at times perform a productive service as risk-takers._ Many of the speculators in staples, wheat, corn, wool, rarely handle the material things, the real products. They make it their business to study the world conditions, to foresee prices, and in a sense to bet upon them.

Regular merchants buy and sell fict.i.tious products of these men. When a miller buys ten thousand bushels of wheat that will remain in the mill three months before they are marketed as actual flour, he at the same time sells that number of bushels to a speculator for future delivery; or selling flour for future delivery the miller buys a future in wheat.

In either case he cancels the chance of loss or gain, giving up the chance of profit in the rise of wheat in exchange for protection from the loss of the product on his hands. To him this is legitimate insurance, for he is striving not to create an artificial risk, but like the medieval ship-owners, to neutralize one that is inseparable from the ordinary conditions of his business.

One may ask, How, if the miller in the long run benefits, can the speculator gain? He does not intend to perform this service for nothing.

Yet as the sales in the whole market equal the purchases, some say that there can be no profits to the speculator. There are unsuccessful speculators and at any rate their losses go to the successful as a sort of gambling profit. Speculators do not dine entirely on "lambs"; they are anthropophagous. But, further, the sales to legitimate purchasers should net a gain to the abler speculator. In proportion as his estimates are correct, there will remain a regular slight margin of profit to him. If he agrees to sell wheat at eighty-five cents to be delivered in three months, he expects it to be a little less at that time. In the long run the ablest speculator probably buys at a little less and sells at a little more than the price really proves to be. This means that the merchants in the long run pay something for protection against changes in prices, just as they pay something for insurance. And yet this is the cheapest way to eliminate risk, and a man engaged on a large scale in milling is, it is said, at a disadvantage if he neglects this method of marginal buying.

[Sidenote: Ignorant and dishonest speculation]

4. _The buying of margins by the "lambs" is simple betting, and much manipulation of the market is dishonest._ What has just been described is the more legitimate phase of marginal buying, not its darker aspect.

One who, having no special opportunities to know the market, buys or sells wheat, or other commodities or securities, on margin, is called a lamb. He is simply betting. He has no unusual skill; he cannot foresee the result. The commission paid to brokers "loads the dice" slightly; the opportunities of the larger dealer of antic.i.p.ating information load the dice heavily against the lambs. Secret combinations and all kinds of false rumors cause fluctuations large enough to use up the margins of the small speculator. At times a number of powerful dealers unite to cause an artificially high or low price, a situation called "a corner."

But this is little other than gambling between betters. The general public gains and loses little if any by these operations, except in the evil effects they entail socially.

-- III. PROMOTER'S AND TRUSTEE'S PROFITS

[Sidenote: The promoter's service to the owners]

1. _The promoter of trusts performs in some ways a substantial economic service._ A promoter is one who undertakes to convert a number of unrelated factories, or establishments, into a trust, or combination. He gets options on different factories, that is, the right to buy them at an agreed price within certain time limits. He gets some banking house to underwrite the combination, that is, to agree to dispose of a number of shares to the investing public. A certain number of shares go to the owners, a certain number to the banking house for its services in underwriting, and a substantial number, it may be ten or twenty per cent, of the enormous capitalization, to the promoter himself. This is payment for his ability to water the stock successfully, to capitalize it for more than its former value. Evidently the owners think he earns the money or they would not pay him. So far as there are economic advantages in large production, and inasmuch as there is always friction in the forming of new industrial arrangements, there is a real social service performed by the promoter. The gains of the promoter are in part the legitimate price of progress.

[Sidenote: The loss of the investors]

2. _A large part of the profits of promoter and of owners is unfairly taken from the investor._ The larger modern business is less and less attached to particular neighborhoods. A much smaller proportion of investments is made in industries which the investor himself can control or even see in operation. Business, therefore, in these days is done largely on faith in other men. Especially the investor takes great chances. The prospectus announcing a reorganization is frequently misleading. It frequently misrepresents the sources of income and the probable dividends, conceals essential facts, and makes misleading statements. The capitalization often is absurdly high, compared with the value of the different establishments. In one case eight million dollars of stock were issued to represent factories whose combined value had been five hundred thousand dollars. So far as the capitalization is based on the increased profits due to the monopoly power, the profits of reorganization are taken out of the pockets of the public. But in fact even monopoly earnings cannot support such valuations, and from the outset if fair dividends are paid, they are falsely paid out of capital, not out of earnings. With the approach of bad times there must be a suspension of dividends, a fall in the value of securities, and a loss falling upon the investors. Such practices are a serious evil, for the stability of industry depends on the opening up of opportunities for safe investment to the average man.

[Sidenote: The speculating trustee]

3. _Corporation officers and trustees, speculating in the stocks of their own companies, are reaping illegitimate gains._ It is recognized by public sentiment and in law that for public officials to let contracts to themselves is bad morals and bad public policy. It is the duty of legislators not to make laws for companies in which they are interested. One of the greatest scandals in American public life, "the Credit Mobilier affair," was caused by the acceptance by members of Congress, virtually as a gift, of shares in a company that was seeking favoring legislation. Such action must be looked upon as a sort of industrial treason, comparable to the old form of political treason.

Corporation officers are in a position of public trust toward the investors quite comparable to that of government officers toward the citizens. The power of directors and of other officers to manipulate earnings and dividends, and thus to affect the market value of the stock, leaves the investing public helpless. The practice by officials in great corporations of speculating in their own stocks, whose prices they can manipulate, is so common as scarcely to attract comment. Large fortunes result from this betrayal of the trust imposed by the shareholders. This is not legitimate speculation; it is like loading the dice, pulling the horse, drugging the pugilist--things despised and condemned even in gambling and sporting circles.

[Sidenote: Two types of speculation]

It appears, therefore, that in the complex conditions of modern business there is a legitimate concentration of risk in the more capable hands, but also a growth of opportunities for illegitimate speculation and for large dishonest gains that were not possible before. These two types of speculation should be distinguished, as far as possible, in thought and in practice; but this it not easy in concrete instances, which vary almost indistinguishably from the clear case of honest earnings to the other extreme of illegitimate gains.

CHAPTER 37

CRISES AND INDUSTRIAL DEPRESSIONS

-- I. DEFINITION AND DESCRIPTION OF CRISES

[Sidenote: Broader definition of a crisis]

1. _In a broad sense, a crisis is a decisive moment or turning point; hence, in industry, a collapse of prosperity._ In the course of a fever the crisis is the point where there is a turn for the better or for the worse. The figure of speech as applied to industrial conditions would seem to fail, in that what precedes is apparently exuberant health, not disease. Business conditions do not move along uniformly. There are waves of prosperity. Profits are apparently great, then may be suddenly swept away. The profits of the prosperous time are partly illusory, or exist only on paper. The situation has all the unhealthiness of the fever-patient. Men trade in promises and when the crisis comes, they have only promises for profits. The discussion of business management and profits is not complete without a consideration of this rhythmic movement of confidence and prices.

A crisis in the business affairs of an individual, in the sense of a collapse of prosperity, may occur from many mischances. A local crisis may be felt in some one neighborhood as a result of flood, of fire, or of other accidents. Such a case was that which occurred in 1864, in Manchester, England, when the cotton factories were compelled to close because the supply of cotton was cut off by the blockade of the ports of the South in the Civil War. Such a local crisis sometimes results from a change of transportation, throwing a town out of the line of trade.

These have been mentioned in discussing chance and risk; but the phenomenon known generally as an industrial crisis is of wider extent and of a more peculiar nature.

[Sidenote: Various types of crises]

2. _In a more special sense a financial crisis is the confusion and loss that mark the end of a period of rising prices; an industrial depression is the period of hard times that follows._ The word crisis suggests a brief period, a moment, something that is severe, sudden, and soon over.