Ethics · John Dewey
SOME PRINCIPLES IN THE ECONOMIC ORDER
Certain problems suggested by the foregoing analysis are unsettled, for the issues are so involved, and in some cases, both the facts and their interpretations are so much in controversy, that we cannot yet formulate sure moral judgments. On the other hand, certain principles emerge with a good degree of clearness. We state some of the more obvious. =1. Wealth and Property are Subordinate in Importance to Personality.=--The life is more than meat. Most agree to this, stated abstractly, but many fail to make the application. They may sacrifice their own health, or human sympathy, or family life; or they may consent to this actively or passively as employers, or consumers, or citizens, in the case of others. A civilization which loses life in providing the means to live is not highly moral. A society which can afford luxuries for some cannot easily justify unhealthful conditions of production, or lack of general education. An individual who gratifies a single appetite at the expense of vitality and efficiency is immoral. A society which considers wealth or property as ultimate, whether under a conception of "natural rights" or otherwise, is setting the means above the end, and is therefore unmoral or immoral.
Such service in the form of some economically useful contribution, whether to the production and distribution of goods, to the public order, to education, to the satisfaction of aesthetic and religious wants, might be demanded as a matter of common honesty. This would be to treat it as a just claim made by society upon each of its members. There is, of course, no legal claim. The law is far from adopting as a universal maxim, "If any man will not work, neither let him eat." Vagrancy is not a term applied to all idlers. It is sufficient for the law if some of a man's ancestors obtained possession and title by service, or force, or gift. Modern law, in its zeal to strengthen the institution of property, releases all the owner's posterity forever from the necessity of any useful service. The old theology used to carry the conception of inherited or imputed sin and merit to extremes which modern individualism rejects. But the law--at least in the United States--permits a perpetual descent of inherited property; i.e., of inherited permission to receive from society without rendering any personal return. Theologically and morally, however, the man of to-day repudiates any conception which would reduce him to a shadow of another. He wishes to stand on his own feet, to be rewarded or blamed according to his own acts, not because of a deed of some one else. To follow out this principle in the economic sphere would require that every man who receives aught from others should feel in duty bound to render some service. Merely "to have been born" is hardly sufficient in a democratic society, however munificent a contribution to the social weal the French aristocrat may have felt this to be.
But it is only one aspect of the case to say that society may claim service as a just due. There is another aspect--what this service means to the person himself. It is his opportunity to fulfill his function in the social organism. Now a person is as large as his purpose and will. The person, therefore, who identifies his purposes with the welfare of the public is thereby identifying himself with the whole social body. He is no longer himself alone; he is a social power. Not only the leader of society, but every efficient servant makes himself an organ through which society itself acts and moves forward. This is perhaps most conspicuous in the case of the great inventors or organizers of industry and society. By serving civilization they have become its bearers and have thus shared its highest pulses. But it is true of every laborer. As he is an active contributor he becomes creative, not merely receptive.
Let the former have his goods made under good conditions and the latter have no scruple against "sweating"; let the former pay taxes on an honest estimate and the latter "see" the assessor, or threaten to move out of town if he is assessed for more than a figure named by himself; let the former ask only for a fair chance, while the latter secures legislation that favors his own interests, or gets specifications for bids worded so that they will exclude his opponents, or in selling to public bodies "fixes" the councils or school committees, or obtains illegal favors in transportation. Let this continue, and how long will the former stay in the field? Even as regards quality of goods, where it would seem more plausible that honest dealing might succeed, experience has shown that this depends on whether the frauds can be easily detected. In the case of drugs and goods where the adulterations cannot be readily discovered, there is nothing to offset the more economical procedure of the fraudulent dealer. The fact that it is so difficult to procure pure drugs and pure food would seem to be most plausibly due to the fatal competition of the adulterated article.
Or, suppose a person has a little property invested in some one of the various corporations which offer the most convenient method for placing small sums as well as large. This railroad defies the government by owning coal mines as well as transporting the product; that public service corporation has obtained its franchise by bribery; this corporation is an employer of child labor; that finds it less expensive to pay a few damage suits--those it cannot fight successfully--than to adopt devices which will protect employees. Does a man, or even an institution, act morally if he invests in such corporations in which he finds himself helpless as an individual stockholder? And if he sells his stock at the market price to invest the money elsewhere, is it not still the price of fraud or blood? If, finally, he buys insurance for his family's support, recent investigation has shown that he may have been contributing unawares to bribery of legislatures, and to the support of political theories to which he may be morally opposed. The individual cannot be moral in independence. The modern business collectivism forces a collective morality. Just as the individual cannot resist the combination, so individual morality must give place to a more robust or social type.
But the logical way to meet the impersonal character of modern economic agencies is by the moral consciousness embodied in an impersonal agency, the law. The law is not to be regarded chiefly as an agency for punishing criminals. It, in the first place, defines a standard; and, in the next place, _it helps the morally disposed to maintain this standard by freeing him from unscrupulous competition_. It is a general principle that to resort to the law is an ethical gain only when the getting something done is more important than to get it done from the right motive. This evidently applies to acts of corporate bodies. We do not care for their motives. We are not concerned to save their souls. We are concerned only for results--just the place where we have seen that the personal responsibility breaks down. The value of good motives and moral purpose is in this case located in those who strive to secure and execute progressive legislation for the public good, and in the personal spirit with which this is accepted and carried out by officials.[233]
In addition to the works cited at the close of the last chapter, Giddings, _The Costs of Progress_, in Democracy and Empire, 1901; Bosanquet (Mrs. B.), _The Standard of Life_, 1898; Bosanquet, B., _Aspects of the Social Problem_, 1895; Stephen, _Social Rights and Duties_, 1896; Tufts, _Some Contributions of Psychology toward the Conception of Justice_, Philosophical Review, xv., 1906, pp. 361-79; Woods, _Democracy, a New Unfolding of Human Power_, in Studies in Philosophy and Psychology (Garman Commemorative Volume), 1906. [231] Hayes Robbins in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for June, 1907, "The Personal Factor in the Labor Problem." [232] _Sin and Society._ [233] See Florence Kelley, _Some Ethical Gains through Legislation_.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.