Consumers and Wage-Earners: The Ethics of Buying Cheap

by J. Elliot Ross

But what are we doing for that other great class of poor, those who work but do not receive a just compensation? What are we doing in the way of preventive philanthropy, to keep these men from becoming utterly destitute? It is for the sublime struggle of the underpaid workman that our sympathies need now to be aroused. No Crusader ever fought for the Sepulcher with more heroism than many a poverty-stricken laborer to support himself and family. Day after day he takes up the hopeless task, while nearer and nearer yawns the slough of pauperism where four million human beings who were once self-respecting workmen like himself, now crawl in lethargic content.[99] No waving pennons and blare of trumpets, but a factory whistle at 6 A.M. and a chimney puffing black smoke summon him to battle with powers stronger than Saladin in his might. What Robert Southwell wrote of himself during imprisonment might to-day be applied to millions of wage-slaves:

"I live, but such a life as ever dies,
I die, but such a death as never ends;
My death to end my dying life denies,
And life my living death no whit amends."

Yet notwithstanding the workman's almost superhuman efforts to avoid pauperism, once he reaches that abyss he loses all desire to rise from it. You cannot drive him back into that industrial war which is daily crushing better and stronger natures.

Such being the situation, is it not an inspiration to the Consumer who longs to do something for humanity to feel that he is contributing his mite to keep some workmen from becoming paupers? There are persons, I know, to whom their utter helplessness in the face of all the social evils oppressing us to-day, has been the keenest suffering. To them this doctrine of the responsibility of Consumers and the plans of fulfilling it have come as a gospel of good news. They have felt that they could now find rest from their tortures of conscience: they have felt that they could now have a purpose in life worth living for.

And what if in our sober moments we must admit, that the good we individually accomplish as regards the workman be small? What if we are tempted to look upon it as useless? Let us take courage from the fact that we are members of an organization, that everything that the group accomplishes is in some way attributable to us. One hundred men associated together can accomplish much more than those same men working separately for the same ends. This fact is evident in the case of a religious community. If the members of these communities were scattered as individuals over the earth, how paltry would be the results of all their self-sacrifice and devotion compared with what it is to-day. And so each individual Consumer, banded with others in an organization, can feel that all the work of the whole body is to some extent his. His powers of doing good are multiplied, and the mere fact of his association with others multiplies their capacities too.

But even if this were not so, the mere fact of realizing this principle and co-operating with other noble-minded persons in its fulfillment will be an immense gain to ourselves and will finally result in unexpected good to society. Simply to know that we are accomplishing some little mite in the field of preventive philanthropy will be an inspiration in our lives.

To ask ourselves, not whether a hat be exactly the latest style, not whether it be absolutely the cheapest we can get, but how it was made, what effect is our buying it going to have upon the workers and society in general, will beget an invaluable spirit of self-effacement. A social conscience will be generated and grow until it becomes a dominant note in our lives. And from us this gospel of charity and justice, this good news to men of good will, will spread until it becomes a mighty force for social amelioration.

We have passed through ages of autocratic tyranny; the individualistic democracy of the last century is waning; there is approaching an era of social effort, social morality, a recognition of social interdependence. "The quick and sensitive ear," to quote Miss Scudder, "hears the beat of a new music, to which men begin to rally.[100] It is a concerted harmony, no mere solitary bugle call; and those who march to it are more or less consciously swayed by a new rhythm. For it is notable that the rhythms of life are coming more and more to connote harmony rather than melody, or rather to weave many melodic phrasings into one complex whole. Association—or to use the fairer word, fellowship—becomes a term of increasing modern cogency."

What matter, that to any but the superficial observer, the situation looks dark. It may be that the more we study it, the blacker it grows. As we look back upon the history of man's strivings for some better social organization, the conflict may seem hopeless. We may be tempted to reflect with William Morris, "How men fight and lose the battle, and the thing they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes it turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name."