Unrebuked, right proudly the cash-register devotee, the business man, blurts out: “There is no sentiment in business.”
That proposition, “No sentiment,” is enough to make a cannibal blush. Yet that doctrine is at the heart of capitalism.
If there is no sentiment in business, then there is no brotherhood in business, for brotherhood is a sublime and beautiful sentiment.
And if there is no brotherhood in business there can not be Christian fellowship in business.
Thus business banishes Christ and the Cross retreats before the onslaughts of the cash-register.
But it is actually and sadly true that business, competitive business, is too little and belittling, too wolfishly fierce, for deep and loyal brotherhood. This is also true of the great class competition, the class struggle, the embittering clash of industrial class interests.
And where there is no deep and loyal brotherhood, no great socializing unity of interest stretching from the centre to the rim of society, including all, peace is impossible.
Thus it is that in the great competitive business world, like quarrelsome dogs, every business man’s hand is against every other business man’s hand competing in the “same line,” to “put him out of business” and thus “get more business.”
Thus local neighbors are at war in a Christless scramble for business.
Thus nations also, fiercely struggling for markets and territory, are at war—commercial war—sometimes needing sword and cannon. (See pp. [40]–41.)