Ethics · John Dewey
UNSETTLED PROBLEMS IN THE ECONOMIC ORDER
Under this head we propose to consider one general and three special problems on which society is at present at work, framing new moral standards to meet new conditions. Many of the questions involved in the new order marshal themselves under a single antithesis. Will the moral values of wealth be most fully secured and justly distributed by leaving to individuals the greatest possible freedom and holding them morally responsible, or by social agency and control? The first theory is known as _individualism_. The most convenient term for the second position would be _socialism_. Socialism, however, is, for many, an epithet rather than a scientific conception. It is supposed to mean necessarily the abolition of all private enterprise or private property. In its extreme form it might mean this, as individualism in its extreme form would mean anarchy. But as a practical ethical proposition we have before us neither the abolition of public agency and control--extreme individualism--nor the abolition of private agency and control. We have the problem of getting the proper amount of each in order that the highest morality may prevail. Each theory professes to desire the fullest development and freedom of the individual. The individualist seeks it through formal freedom and would limit public agency to a minimum. The socialist is willing to permit limitations on formal freedom in order to secure the "real" freedom which he regards as more important and substantial. Between the extremes, and borrowing from each, is a somewhat indefinite programme known as the demand for equal opportunity. Let us consider each in a brief statement and then in a more thorough analysis.
Sec. 1. GENERAL STATEMENT OF THE POSITIONS OF INDIVIDUALISM AND OF PUBLIC AGENCY AND CONTROL =1. Individualism.=--Individualism[234] believes that each man can secure his own welfare better than any one else can secure it for him. It further holds that society is made up of individuals, and hence, if each is provided for, the welfare of the whole is secured. Such goods as are social can be secured by voluntary association. Believing that the course of civilization has been "from status to contract," it makes free contract its central principle. It should be the chief business of organized society to maintain and safeguard this freedom. It locates the important feature of freedom precisely in the act of assent, rather than in any consideration of whether the after consequences of the assent are good or bad; nor does it ask what motives (force and fraud aside) brought about the assent, or whether there was any other alternative. In other words, it regards formal freedom as fundamental. If not in itself all that can be desired, it is the first step, and the only one which law need recognize. The individual may be trusted to take other steps, if protected in this. The only restriction upon individual freedom should be that it must not interfere with the equal freedom of others. In the economic sphere this restriction would mean, "must not interfere by force."
The theory does not regard economic pressure by competition as interference. Hence it favors free competition. Leaving out of account benevolence, it holds that in business each should be allowed, or even recommended, to seek his own advantage. But when the question as to the justice of the distribution reached by this method is raised, a division appears between the _democratic_ individualists and the "_survival of the fittest_" individualists. The democratic individualists--Adam Smith, Bentham, Mill[235]--believed that individualism would promote the welfare of _all_ members of society. The "survival of the fittest" school maintains that the welfare of the race or of civilization depends on the sifting and selecting process known as the "struggle for existence." If the "fittest" are thus selected and survive, it matters not so much what is the lot of the rest. We must choose between progress through aristocratic selection and degeneration through democratic leveling.
Sec. 2. INDIVIDUALISM OR FREE CONTRACT ANALYZED: ITS VALUES =Efficiency in Production.=--Individualism can make out a strong case in respect to several of the ethical qualities which are demanded: viz., efficiency in production of goods, stimulation of active and forceful character, promotion of freedom and responsibility, encouragement to wide diversification of occupation and thus of services, and, finally, the supply to society of the kinds of goods which society wants. It would be absurd to credit the enormous increase in production of wealth during the past century to individualism alone, ignoring the contributions of science and education which have been mainly made under social auspices. It would be as absurd to credit all the gains of the century in civilization and freedom to individualism as it would be to charge all the wretchedness and iniquity of the century to this same policy. But, setting aside extravagant claims, it can scarcely be doubted that Adam Smith's contentions for greater individual freedom have been justified as regards the tests named. Granting that the great increase in amount and variety of production, and in means of communication and distribution, has been primarily due to two agencies, the machine and association, it remains true that individualism has permitted and favored association and has stimulated invention.
Sec. 3. CRITICISMS UPON INDIVIDUALISM There is undoubtedly great waste in some of its methods, e.g., its advertising and its competitions, but the most serious objections to individualism are not to be found here; they arise in connection with the other ethical criteria of economic morality. They fall chiefly under two heads. (1) Does individualism provide for real as well as formal freedom? (2) Does it distribute the benefits widely or to the few? Does it distribute them justly or unjustly? =It Does Not Secure Real Freedom.=--The distinction between real and formal[236] freedom has been forced into prominence by several causes. The division of labor trains a man for a specific kind of work. If there is no opening in this he is unable to find work. The continual invention of improved machinery is constantly displacing particular sets of workers and rendering their special training worthless. A business panic causes immediate discharge of thousands of laborers. A "trust" closes several of its shops, and workmen who have purchased homes must lose their jobs or their investments, or perhaps both. The employer is no less limited in his conduct by the methods of competing firms; but it is the wage-workers who have felt this lack of real freedom most keenly. Theoretically, no one is forced to labor. Every one is free to choose whether he will work, and what work he will do. But in effect, freedom of choice depends for its value upon what the alternative is. If the choice is, do this or--starve--the freedom is not worth much. Formal freedom excludes constraint by the direct control or will of others. It excludes violence or fear of violence. But subjection to the stress or fear of want, or to the limits imposed by ignorance, is just as fatal to freedom. Hunger is as coercive as violence; ignorance fetters as hopelessly as force. Whether a man has any choice of occupation, employment, residence, or wage, depends on his physical strength, education, family ties, and accumulated resources, and on the pressure of present need. To speak of free contract where there is gross inequality between the parties, is to use a mere form of words. Free contract in this case means simply the right of the stronger to exploit the weaker.
The older economists of democratic individualism could properly claim two respects in which economic justice was furthered by economic processes under free management and exchange. The social body is in truth made up of members, and the old policy had been to tie up the members to make the body grow. It did promote justice to remove needless and excessive restrictions. In the second place, it is true, as the economists insisted, that in a free exchange each party profits if he gets what he wants. There is mutual benefit, and so far as this goes there is an element of justice. But while the benefit may be mutual, the _amount_ of advantage each gets is not necessarily the same, and if the party who has greater shrewdness or resources takes advantage of a great need on the part of the other, the result may be a very unequal division. Exchanges of a birthright for a mess of pottage will be common. Very well, says the individualist, Esau will know better next time--or if he doesn't, he is an object for charity.
But the trouble is that even if Esau does "know better" he is in even poorer condition next time to make a bargain if his birthright is gone; besides, if starvation or misery for himself or his family is his only alternative, what good will it do him to "know better"? Can the result, then, be just or fair? This depends on how we define "just" and "fair." If we take a purely formal view and make formal freedom of contract the only criterion, then any price is fair which both parties agree to. The law for the most part takes this view, assuming absence of force or fraud. But this leaves out of account everything except the bare formal act of assent. It is too abstract a conception of personality on which to base a definition of justice. To get the true organic relation of mutual service and benefit by a system of individualism we must have the two parties to the bargain equal. _But in a large part of the exchange of business and services the two parties are not equal._ One has greater shrewdness, better education, more knowledge of the market, more accumulated resources, and, therefore, less pressing need than the other. The moral consciousness will call prices or contracts unfair where the stronger takes advantage of the weaker's necessities, even if the law does not.
For the enormous powers which the new forms of economic agency and technique give to the individual who can wield them, enable him to crush competitors. The process has been repeated over and over within the past few years in various fields. The only way in which a semblance of competition has been maintained in railroad business has been by appeal to the courts. This is an appeal to maintain individualism by checking individualism, and as might be expected from such a contradictory procedure, has accomplished little. Nor can it be maintained that the evils may be obviated, as Spencer holds, by private restraints on excessive competition. As already pointed out, if one of a body of competitors is unscrupulous, the rest are necessarily at a disadvantage. Under present conditions individualism cannot guarantee, and in many cases cannot permit, just distribution and a true organic society.
The other school of individualists is not disturbed by inequality of goods. It frankly accedes to the logic of unrestrained competition. It stakes its case upon the importance for social welfare of the exceptionally gifted few. It is important to have their services. It can have them only on terms which they set, as they will not work unless there is sufficient motive. It is, on this view, perfectly just that all the enormous increase of wealth due to modern methods should go to the few leaders, for their ability has produced it all. "The able minority of men who direct the labor of the majority are the true producers of that amount of wealth by which the annual total output, in any given community, exceeds what would have been produced by the laborers if left to their own devices, whether working as isolated units or in small self-organized groups, and controlled by no knowledge or faculties but such as are possessed in common by any one who can handle a spade or lay one brick upon another."[238]
Either from the standpoint of natural rights or from that of utilitarianism it is proper, according to this school, that all the increasing wealth of society, now and in all future time, should go to the few. For, on the one view, it belongs to the few since they have produced it; and, on the other, it must be given them if society is to have their services. It is possible they may not claim it all for their exclusive possession. They may be pleased to distribute some of it in gifts. But this is for them to say. The logical method for carrying out this programme would require an absolute abandonment by the people as a whole, or by their representatives, or the courts, of any attempt to control economic conditions. The courts would be limited to enforcing contracts and would cease to recognize considerations of public interest except in so far as these were accepted by the able minority. All such legislation as imposes any check upon the freedom of the individual is mischievous. Under this head would presumably come regulation of child labor, of hours, of sanitary conditions, of charges by railroads, gas companies, and other public service corporations. Graded income or inheritance taxes are also to be condemned from this standpoint. It should in fairness be added that while its upholders do not allege as their main argument that individualism is for the interest of the many, they hold, nevertheless, that the many are really better off under individualism than under socialism. For since all the increase in wealth is due to the able few whom individualism produces, and since some of this increase, in cases where the few compete for the custom or labor of the many, may fall to the share of the many or else be given them outright by the more generous, it appears that the only hope for the many lies through the few.
The general naturalistic theory has been discussed in Chapter XVIII. Here it is only necessary to point out that it is a misreading of evolution to suppose unregulated competition to be its highest category of progress, and that it is a misinterpretation of ethics to assume that might is right. With the dawn of higher forms of life, cooperation and sympathy prove stronger forces for progress than ruthless competition. The "struggle" for any existence that has a claim to moral recognition must be a struggle for more than physical existence or survival of force. It must be a struggle for a _moral_ existence, an existence of rational and social beings on terms of mutual sympathy and service as well as of full individuality. Any claim for an economic process, if it is to be a moral claim, must make its appeal on moral grounds and to moral beings. If it recognizes only a few as having worth, then it can appeal only to these. These few have no moral right to complain if the many, whom they do not recognize, refuse to recognize them.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.