Problems of Conduct: An Introductory Survey of Ethics Part 20

INDUSTRIAL WRONGS

WE have been discussing the treatment of recognized crime. But beyond the boundaries of conduct universally labeled as criminal, there is a whole realm of anti-social action to which the public conscience is only beginning to be sensitive, although it is often far more harmful to the general welfare than that for which men are imprisoned.

Especially is this true of the wrongs connected with modern industry.

As Professor Ross puts it, [Footnote: Sin and Society, p. 97.] "the master iniquities of our time are connected with money-making"; and so our "moral pace-setters," who are, for the most part, confining their attacks to the time-worn and familiar sins, "do not get into the big fight at all." The root of the trouble is that great power over the lives and happiness of others has been acquired by a small cla.s.s of irresponsible men, many of whom fail to recognize their privileged position as a public trust and care only for enriching themselves. As we noted in chapter in, the complexification of our industrial life is making possible a whole new range of what must be branded as crimes; endless opportunities have been opened up of money-making at the cost of others' suffering. Often that suffering, or loss, is so remote from the path of the greedy business man that he does not see himself, and others fail to see him, as the predatory money-grabber that he is. The many who have been ruined by unscrupulous compet.i.tors are often embittered, the repressed capitalism; but the public as a whole has not been aroused to rebuke this "newer unrighteousness." We must proceed to note its commonest contemporary forms. In our present organization of industry, what are the duties of businessmen:

I. To the public?

(1) The first duty of businessmen is to supply honest goods, in honest measure. Underweight, undermeasure, double- bottomed berry-boxes, bottles so shaped as to appear to contain more than their actual contents, are obviously cheating. Misbranding of goods is now regulated, so far as interstate trade goes, by the Federal Pure Food and Drugs Act; and most States have similar legislation.

Misrepresentation in advertis.e.m.e.nt should be severely punished; the selling of cold storage for fresh products, of part-cotton for all-wool clothing, of less for more expensive woods, and the thousand other ways of panning inferior goods upon an inexpert public for high-grade articles. At present there is little recourse but to carry distrust into all purchasing, learn to be canny, and to recognize differences in quality in all articles needed. But the average man cannot become an expert purchaser; he buys furniture which breaks down prematurely; he pays a high price for clothing which proves to have no wearing quality; he buys patent medicines which promise to cure his physical ills, and is lucky if they do not leave him worse in health than before.

Jerry- building, and the doing of fake jobs by contractors, especially for munic.i.p.alities, is one of the scandals of our times. [Footnote: See Encyclopedia Britannica, article, "Adulteration." E. Kelly Twentieth Century Socialism, book ii, chap. i. For a notorious case of tampering with weights, see Outlook, vol. 92, p. 25; vol. 93, p. 811. For cases of adulteration, Good Housekeeping Magazine, vol. 54, p. 593. F. W.

Taussig, Principles of Economics, chap. 45.]

(2) Another duty, less generally recognized by even the more honorable businessmen, is to sell their goods at fair prices. The strangulation of compet.i.tion by mutual agreements or the formation of trusts, aided often by an iniquitously high tariff, has put many a business for a time on a par with those natural monopolies which, if unregulated, can always exact exorbitant prices for what the public needs. Rich profits have been made by the tucking of a few cents on to the price of gas, or coal, or steel, or oil, or telephone service. Enormous fortunes have been made, at the public expense, by the practical cornering of staple commodities. These hold-up prices should be clearly recognized for what they are-a form of modern piracy. No business man or corporation is ent.i.tled in justice to more than a moderate reward for the mental and physical labor expended; the excessive incomes of monopoly are largely at the expense of the public, who, by one means or other, are being compelled to pay more than a fair price for the article. [Footnote: For cases, see C. R. Van Hise, Concentration and Control, pp. 109,145, 149.]

(3) Finally, all business must be looked upon as a form of public service, and the convenience of customers scrupulously consulted. Where there is compet.i.tion this tends to regulate itself; but our public- service monopolies have too often followed the "public- be-d.a.m.ned"

policy. The long-suffering community puts up with inadequate and crowded streetcars, inconvenient train service, a bungled and high- handed telephone system. Railway managements have sometimes been criminally indifferent to public safety, finding it less expensive to lose occasional damage suits than to install safety appliances.

Efficiency in serving the public has likewise been sacrificed to dividends; and courtesy, where it is not recognized to have a cash value, tends to disappear. Such indictments point to the widespread existence of the idea that men and corporations are in business for themselves only, and not as fulfilling a public need.[Footnote: For concrete ill.u.s.trations, see Outlook, vol. 91, p. 861; vol. 95, p. 515.

World's Work, vol. 23, p. 579.]

II. TO INVENTORS?

It has not been generally enough recognized that business men owe it to investors to do their best to see to it that they get fair returns on their money invested -and only fair returns. There are a number of ways in which, on the one hand, the investing public is "skinned,"

and, on the other hand, stock in a business, largely owned by the management itself, has been rewarded with undeserved dividends at the expense of the public.

(1) There are, in the first place, the get-rich-quick swindles, the out-and-out impostures, which have deceived the credulous into investments that never could pay. Bonanza mines, impractical inventions, town lots laid out on the prairie, orange groves that existed only on paper-such bogus hopes have enticed many an honest man and woman, who could ill afford to lose, into turning over their small earnings to the brazen exploiters.[Footnote: For cases, see World's Work, vol. 21, p. 14112.]

(2) But such arrant deception is not the commonest form of wrong. A more usual practice, and more dangerous- because it deceives even the intelligent-is to overcapitalize an honest business, to issue "watered"

stock-that is, stock in excess of the actual value of plant, patents, and other a.s.sets. These stocks are issued merely to sell. If the business is very successful, its profits may pay a fair return on all this capital; if not, low dividends or none can be paid until the business slowly catches up with its overcapitalization. In all investment-as our industrial organization at present goes-there is risk; but to create a needless risk and deceive the public into taking it is plain dishonesty. The extra money thus sucked from the public goes sometimes to pay excessive salaries to the officials of the company, sometimes to pay excessive prices for patents or plants purchased; there are many subtle ways, known to "high finance," of misappropriating stockholders' money and diverting it to the pockets of the promoters. Many great fortunes have been made in this way; such exploitation is so new to society that it has not yet awakened to its essentially criminal nature. Even if the business is able to pay good dividends on watered stock, the crime of overcapitalization is not lessened, though the harm done is now not to the investor but to the public. Stocks should represent only the actual value of the property, so that dividends may be only a fair return for capital really invested in the business. Where there is sharp compet.i.tion, the possibility of overcharging the public to make returns on watered stock is cut out, and the loss falls upon the investor. But in the case of monopolies, such as railways, or of combinations which practically stifle compet.i.tion, the public may be charged enough to "pay a fair dividend to investors," although the money upon which dividends are being made went not into improving the service, but into fattening the promoters'

purses. [Footnote: On stock watering, see Dewey and Tufts, Ethics, pp. 561-64. Outlook, vol. 85, p. 562. Political Science Quarterly, vol. 26, p. 88. International Journal of Ethics, vol. 18, p. 151. C.

R. Van Hise, Concentration and Control, pp. 115, 142, etc.]

(3) A third method of "fleecing" investors lies in skillful manipulation of the stock market. In ways which are known to the initiated, it is often possible artificially to raise or lower the market value of stocks. Unwary investors are lured in; timid investors are frightened out; through all ticker fluctuations the brokers win their commissions; the skilled financiers and organizers of combinations rake in unearned sums that are sometimes immense, while the losses fall mostly to the lot of the are honestly seeking to put their savings into solid investments. The ethics of the stock market has not yet been clearly decided, and the subject is too big to discuss here.

It is mentioned only to point out one more form of social sinning, as yet inadequately punished or rebuked, whereby men of capital and brains have been able to pocket money for which they have given no return to society. [Footnote: For cases, see C. Norman Fay, Big Business and Government. Outlook, vol. 91, pp. 591, 636.]

III. TO COMPEt.i.tORS?

(1) The most conspicuous form of wrongdoing, perhaps, to be charged to modern business is the attempt to get monopoly by foul means. The story of too many of our great trusts is a story of compet.i.tors ruined by ruthless and unscrupulous methods. The compet.i.tor may be hurt by the circulation of falsehoods concerning his business, his right to patents, or the worth of his goods. He may be denied outlet to markets by control of the railway upon which he must depend. If the capital of the concern that is seeking monopoly permits, the price of the article manufactured may be lowered until rivals with less financial backing are forced out of business-after which the price can be raised and losses recouped. With skill and foresight worthy of a better cause, some of the great industrial leaders of our day have eliminated one rival after another and attained that unification of a business which has, indeed, its great economic advantages, but is not to be won at such a bitter cost. [Footnote: See, for example, I. Tarbell, History of the Standard Oil Company.]

(2) Even where monopoly is not sought, there are many unfair methods of compet.i.tion-unfair to compet.i.tors and to the public that both should serve. One method, much discussed in recent years, is that of railway rebates. By this is meant favoritism in freight rates between s.h.i.+ppers and between localities. One manufacturer, who is in a position to s.h.i.+p his goods by either of two railways, perhaps by a water route, is given a low rate to get his freight; another manufacturer of similar goods, not so favorably situated, is made to pay a higher rate. Rates from seaboard or river cities, where water compet.i.tion exists, have often been considerably lower than rates from inland towns on the same line, with a very much shorter haul. In such ways the railway squeezes those whom it can squeeze and is content with a bare profit where it can do no better. Where the railway is controlled by the same interests that control some industrial combination, the favoritism may go even farther, and the railway's profits be sacrificed entirely for the cheaper marketing of that particular trust's article. Against all such inequalities in the treatment of s.h.i.+ppers the public conscience has lately protested; the railways are recognized as a public instrument of transportation, which should be open to use by all upon equal terms, at a price which will repay the cost of carriage plus a fair profit.

[Footnote: On railway rebates, see H. R. Seager, Introduction to Economics, chap. XXIV, secs 260-63. F. W. Taussig, Principles of Economics, chap. 60, secs. 7, 8. Outlook, vol. 81, p. 803; vol. 85, p. 161.] IV. TO EMPLOYEES?

(1) The first duty of employers is to give to all employees a fair wage. If the business does not pay enough to allow this, it has no right to exist; if the owners are pocketing large salaries, or giving dividends to stockholders, this money should be used first for a proper payment of the workers. So many laborers are at the mercy of the employing cla.s.s, because of their ignorance, their lack of capital and necessity of work at any wage, and often their unfamiliarity with the language and customs of the country, that it has become possible in many cases to treat them like animals and give them less than enough to sustain life in decency, not to say in comfort. Such a case as that of our benevolent Mr. Carnegie, who million dollars in one year's earnings of his steel trust, while many hundreds of his employees were getting but a miserable pittance and living in vile surroundings, is exceptionally glaring; but in lesser degree the same injustice is being wrought in many industries. Wages have, indeed, been raised gradually, here and there; but not usually by the free will of employers. The callousness of some of the privileged cla.s.ses toward the underpayment of the lower cla.s.ses is almost on a par with the att.i.tude of the n.o.bility before the French Revolution.[Footnote: See, for example, Outlook, vol. 101, p. 345.] Fortunately, the public is coming to see not only the wrong done to the helpless poor, but the cost to the community in breeding underfed, ill- housed, criminally tempted cla.s.ses, and the danger that lies ahead if these cla.s.ses realize their power before amelioration is effected from above. As a recent writer has put it, Addition Division=Revolution. [Footnote: S. Hearing, Wages in the United States; Social Adjustment, chap. IV. Ryan, A Living Wage.]

(2) Another phase of modern industrial injustice is the overlong hours of work still required in many industries. The race for cheapness of product has blinded manufacturers and the public to the cost in terms of human happiness. An eight-hour day is quite long enough to produce all that is necessary, with the aid of modern machinery; every man should be given a margin of leisure for education, recreation, and social life. And every man should be given the benefit of that one day's rest out of seven which is so precious a legacy to us from the Jewish religion.[Footnote: A joint legislative committee in Ma.s.sachusetts in 1907 estimated that 222,000 persons in that State were working seven days in the week. Similar, or worse, conditions exist throughout the country.] Those industries that require continuous use of machinery should employ three complete s.h.i.+fts of workmen; and those that must be run every day in the week should have enough extra helpers man. This humanizing of hours cannot be done by individual action, where compet.i.tion is sharp; but by legislation that bears equally upon all, a generous standard-the eight-hour day and six-day week -can be maintained, with hards.h.i.+p to none and a great increase in the health and happiness of the ma.s.ses. Especially jealous should the law be for the welfare of women workers. In cotton mills in the South women work ten and twelve hours a day; in canneries in the North they work, during the short season, fifteen and eighteen hours a day, eighty or even ninety hours a week. Particularly should women be protected during the weeks before and after childbirth; as it is, women workers are often ruined in health for life, the rate of infant mortality is shockingly high, and the children that survive are usually subnormal.

Girls through overwork are weakened too seriously to bear strong children- which, in any case, they have had no time or opportunity to learn how to nurture and rear. No doubt women should work, as well as men; if not in the home, then outside the home. But the contemporary economic pressure that bears so hard on so many girls and women must be eased not only for their sakes but for that of coming generations.

[Footnote: Dorothy Richardson, The Long Day. S. Nearing, Social Adjustment, chap. X. J. Rae, Eight Hours for Work.]

(3) The most piteous form of industrial slavery is that of young children, who should be in school or out of doors, developing their minds and bodies into some measure of readiness for adult work and responsibility, instead of prematurely losing the joy of life and stunting their mental and physical growth. In 1910 some two million children under sixteen were earning their living in this country. Even many thousands of children of twelve years or less are set to work in our factories and canneries. These children get almost no development and wholesome recreation; in great numbers they die early, and if they live it is commonly to fall into some form of vice or crime, and to breed an inferior race. Nothing is more inhumane or more mad than for the community to permit cheapness of goods at such a price. Indeed, child labor means, in the end, economic waste; the ultimate loss in efficiency on the part of these undeveloped, uneducated children, far more than overbalances the temporary industrial gain. The situation has been incredibly shocking; the employers who seek such an advantage over their humaner rivals, and the legislators who have winked at their inhumanity, deserve no mild reprobation. But legislation alone is not adequate to meet the situation; the underlying cause is the insufficient payment of adult workers, which practically necessitates supplementation by what the children can add to the family income.

This is one ill.u.s.tration of the way in which all our social problems are tangled together so that it is impossible fully to solve any one without solving the others. When every adult receives wages enough to support a normal family-and when he is content to restrict his family to normal size; when the public schools are made efficient enough to show their evident worth to parents and to attract the children themselves, and a strict truant system takes care that the law is really obeyed; when the sick and defective and aged among the poor are cared for at public expense as a matter of course, there will be no need for children to work to help support the family; and we must endeavor, by the arousal of public opinion and by nationwide legislation, to keep children out of the factories, the shops, and the mines, till they are full-grown and educated. [Footnote: S. Nearing, The Solution of the Child-Labor Problem. J. Spargo, The Bitter Cry of the Children. E. N. Clopper, Child Labor in City Streets. Reports of Annual Meetings of the National Child Labor Committee. (Free literature. 105 East Twenty-second Street, New York City.)]

(4) A less appalling, but still sufficiently serious; aspect of industrial unrighteousness is the dirty, crowded, ugly, unsanitary, and sometimes indecent conditions under which many workers in our prosperous age have to carry on their work. Lack of proper lighting, s.p.a.ce, and ventilation, unnecessary noises, and general untidiness, undermine the health and morals of laborers; while insufficient fire- protection causes intermittently one tragedy after another. Much has been done in many quarters to improve such conditions; not a few up-to- date factories are models of cleanliness and sanitation, s.p.a.cious, reasonably quiet, and altogether pleasant places in which to spend the working day. They point the way which all must in time follow.

In addition, the provision of reading-rooms, baths, rest- and recreation- rooms, lunch-rooms, athletic fields, and the like, give augury of that happy future when work shall be divorced from ugliness and free from unnecessary physical strain.[Footnote: Sir T. Oliver, Diseases of Occupation. W. H. Tolman, Social Engineering, chaps. III, X, XI.

World's Work, vol. 15, p. 9534; vol. 23, p. 294. Outlook, vol. 97, p. 817; vol. 100, p. 353.]

(5) Finally, the callousness to injuries incurred by employees must be sharply checked. Well over a hundred thousand men, women, and children are killed or injured every year in the various industries of this country. Our proportion of accidents is far greater than in Europe; the great majority are preventable by the adoption of known safeguards.

What stands in the way is, partly, ignorance and heedlessness on the part of employers, and, still more, the initial cost of installing safety appliances. It is often cheaper to lose an occasional damage suit than to forestall accidents. In coal mines alone we have let thirty thousand men be killed and seventy-five thousand be more or less seriously maimed, in a decade; proportionately about twice as many as in European mines-which are far from ideally safeguarded. There are two ways to check this waste and crippling of human life; one is to keep our legislation up to date, and require the installation of every effective safety device, no matter if the cost to the public has to be increased. The other is to make accidents so expensive to employers that they will have a greater interest in taking measures to prevent them.

Certainly all deaths or injuries in any industry where proper precautions have been neglected must be a criminal matter for the employer. [Footnote: Outlook, vol. 92, p. 171; vol. 93, p. 196; vol.

99, p. 202. World's Work, vol. 22, p. 13602; vol. 23, p. 713.] We must do entirely away with the system whereby accidents to workingmen bear so heavily upon their families. Though it is true that they are commonly due, in some measure, to the carelessness of the worker, his punishment, in the loss of life or limb, is great enough; and if he dies or is incapacitated from supporting wife and children, the burden should fall upon the community, which is able to bear it. It should not be necessary to bring a damage suit against the employer; that method is slow, dubious, and expensive; the corporation, with its expert lawyers, has too great an advantage over the helpless and sorrow-struck poor. In some form, automatic compensation for injuries is destined to become universal; the cost will fall upon the industry, where it belongs, bad feeling between employer and employee will cease, the courts will be freed from a good deal of work, and relief will follow injury with promptness and certainty. [Footnote: H. R. Seager, Social Insurance. Outlook, vol. 85, p. 508; vol. 92, p. 319; vol. 98, p. 49.

S. Nearing, Social Adjustment, chap. XII.] What general remedies for industrial wrongs are feasible?

(1) The first step toward an amelioration of our crude and unjust industrial code is to awaken the public conscience to protest against the evils we have enumerated. Publicity, pitiless publicity, alone can lead to redress. These large- scale, impersonal sins must not be so nonchalantly tolerated; instead of applauding and envying the shrewd financier who rakes in unearned profits by clever manipulation, by unscrupulous use of inside information, and disregard of the welfare of workers, compet.i.tors, and public, we must brand him as a selfish scoundrel, turn him out of the church, ostracize him in society. Such a man must not be looked upon as a successful businessman any more than a pirate is a successful trader; success must clearly imply obedience to the rules of the game. Taking all that one can grab without punishment is a reversion to barbarism; the unscrupulous magnate is morally no better than a pickpocket. And these men are, in general, responsive to public opinion; it has effected rapid improvement in some points in the past few years. Just so soon as the community conscience is aroused to the point of a general condemnation of industrial robbery, it will cease to flaunt itself so boldly, and lurk only underground with the other furtive sins.

(2) We cannot rely wholly upon the force of public opinion, however; the law must be ready to check those who are insensitive to moral restraints. One by one, the paths of evildoing must be blocked.

Especially must the law learn how to punish corporations, which have been the greatest offenders. At present the stockholders throw responsibility upon the directors, the directors upon their managers, and they upon the subordinates who have personally carried through the evil practices. But to punish these subordinates is ineffective, because they have, in general, little money wherewith to pay fines, and will be ready to run the risk of imprisonment for the sake of pleasing their superiors and earning promotion. If they are imprisoned, others can readily be found to step into their places and higher up.

It is these superiors who must be held responsible for acts done by their subordinates. If they realize the risk of punishment falling upon their own heads, they will see to it that illegal practices are discontinued. It will probably be necessary to hold directors responsible for the conduct of their managers, and stockholders for the character of their directors. It will then become the business of owners and directors to watch out for lawbreaking and to put men in control who will keep to fair dealing. This will put an end to the easy a.s.sumption of the directors.h.i.+p of several corporations at once by men whose names are wanted; directors.h.i.+p will be made to imply actual attention to the affairs of the business. And the stockholders will take pains to elect such directors as will not incur fines for the corporation that will lessen their dividends. [Footnote: For comment on this matter, see Outlook, vol. 88, p. 862.]

(3) Through these two means, public opinion and the law, we must work toward the ultimate solution, the establishment of codes of honor in the professions and industries. Canons of professional ethics have been adopted by lawyers and doctors; any member of these professions who is guilty of breaking these canons suffers loss of prestige and, almost inevitably, financial loss. So must it be in every industry; each must be organized and must formulate for itself its code; so that pressure from within will supplement pressure from without. There is plenty of capacity for loyalty, self-denial, and discipline in men, even in captains of industry; it needs only to be aroused, crystallized, directed. "We may prevent certain specific practices by statutes which make them misdemeanors; but in so doing we have simply cut off one way of reaching an end. Men will get the same result by another route.

obtaining money or office in certain specified ways. We must so shape their ambitions that they do not wish to obtain money or office by means that injure the community. We must get them to consider public selfishness as dishonorable a thing as we now consider private selfishness". If a man today crowds himself out of a theater, leaving behind him a trail of bruised women and children, the very newsboy in the street will hiss him when he gets to the door. Such a man will be despised by the public, and in his heart he will despise himself, for taking advantage of his strength to crush others. But if a man gets money or office by a.n.a.logous processes, the world is inclined to admire the result and forgive the means; and the man, instead of despising himself for his selfishness, applauds himself for his success.[Footnote: A. T. Hadley, Standards of Public Morality, p. 8.] Certainly, unless in these peaceful ways we can transform our present system of grab-as-grab-can into a fair and rational industrial order, changes will come by violence and revolution. There are volcanic pa.s.sions slumbering beneath the prosperity of our trade and manufacture; there is but a brief respite before society wherein to evolve a measure of social justice. The lower cla.s.ses are awakening to their power; unless society and government grant them their fair share of the fruits of industry, they will take them through the wreck of society and government. There is no moral problem more pressing than the finding of peaceful remedies for industrial wrongs.

E. A. Ross, Sin and Society. H. R. Seager, Introduction to Economics, chap. XXII. C. R. Van Hise, Concentration and Control, chap. II. A.

T. Hadley, Standards of Public Morality. H. C. Potter, The Citizen in his Relation to the Industrial Situation. W. Gladden, The New Idolatry. R. C. Brooks, Corruption in American Politics and Life. H.

Jeffs, Concerning Conscience, chaps. XXII, XXIII. C. R. Henderson, The Social Spirit in America, chaps. VII, IX. J. S. Brooks, The Social Unrest. Jane Addams, Democracy and Social Ethics, chap. V. Buskin, Unto this Last. International Journal of Ethics, vol. 23, p. 455. [For specific references, see footnotes.]

CHAPTER XXVII

INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION

OUR modern industrial evils are so grave and so deep-rooted that it is highly questionable whether the pressure of public opinion, piecemeal legislation, and the development of codes of honor can strike deep enough to eradicate them. Is not, perhaps, the whole system morally wrong? Instead of these endless attempts to cure the natural results of the system, is there not need of a radical reconstruction? Various attempts have been made, divers proposals are offered, in the hope of curing the causes of present maladies and devising a juster system.

Many of these are doubtless impracticable, or tend to work more hards.h.i.+p than amelioration. But each proposal, of any plausibility, has a right to a hearing if it offers to end the great wrongs of contemporary industry; we must be very confident that it will not work before we reject it. For some way must be found to right these wrongs, or our whole industrial order will go to smash. We must not condemn too hastily a method which has not had a thorough trial, or whose defects time and experience might remedy. For mistaken experiments can be discontinued; and great as is the danger in incautious radicalism, the danger in "standing pat" is greater.

Ought the trusts to be broken up or regulated?

The greatest sinners are, certainly, to speak generally, the great corporations that we call trusts-though the word "distrust" would better express contemporary feeling! So great has popular hostility to them become that the Democratic party platform of July, 1912, declared that "a private monopoly is indefensible and intolerable," and demanded "the enactment of such additional legislation as may be necessary to make it impossible for a private monopoly to exist in the United States," i.e., "the control by any one corporation of so large a proportion of any industry as to make it a menace to compet.i.tive conditions." But is it necessary to destroy this splendidly efficient concentration of industry in order to avoid its evils? The proposal to revert to the older compet.i.tive plan is reminiscent of the outcry against machine production a century earlier, and the earnest pleas then made to return to the hand-tool method. "Big business"

const.i.tutes one of the greatest advances in human industry, and therefore has surely come to stay. From the era of individual workers owning their tools, mankind advanced to the age of compet.i.tion between small concerns using machines; no less marked an advance is that to the age of large-scale production and unified industry. Its advantages may be briefly summarized:

(1) The compet.i.tive system involves needless duplications of plant, machinery, and workers; clerks stand idly in rival stores, waiting for trade, drummers spend their time in getting trade away from one another, great sums have to be spent on advertising. Monopoly means a saving of all this wasted time, labor, and money.

(2) The compet.i.tive system means great fluctuations in industry, constant anxiety, forced cut prices, and frequent failures, with their financial ruin and heartbreak to employers and loss of work to employees. Monopoly means stability, comparative freedom from anxiety, and a saving of the economic confusion and loss of bankruptcies.

(3) The great scale of monopolistic production tends to still further economies. Raw ported in larger quant.i.ties, and so at lower cost; less need be kept on hand at a given time. The utilization of by-products, made feasible by large-scale production, has proved, in many cases, a striking addition to human wealth.

(4) Monopolistic production means that more money can be put into improved processes, into plant and machinery, into making factories sanitary, and working conditions pleasant. The conspicuousness of the plant makes it more open to public criticism and more likely to awaken a sense of pride in the owners. Conditions are seldom tolerated in the big concerns that go unheeded in the little shops.