CHAPTER XXII
THE ETHICS OF THE ECONOMIC LIFE
In considering the ethics of the economic life and of property, so far as this latter topic has not received treatment elsewhere, we give (1) a general analysis of the ethical questions involved, (2) a more specific account of the problems raised by the present tendencies of industry, business, and property; we follow these analyses with (3) a statement of principles, and (4) a discussion of unsettled problems.
§ 1. GENERAL ANALYSIS
Both the economic process and property have three distinct ethical aspects corresponding respectively to the ethical standpoint of happiness, character, and social justice. (1) The economic process supplies men with goods for their bodily wants and with many of the necessary means for satisfying intellectual, æsthetic, and social needs; property represents permanence and security in these same values. (2) Through the difficulties it presents, the work it involves, and the incitements it offers, the economic process has a powerful influence in evoking skill, foresight, and scientific control of nature, in forming character, and stimulating ambition to excel. Property means power, control, and the conditions for larger freedom. (3) The economic process has an important social function. Through division of labor, coöperation, and exchange of goods and services, it affords one of the fundamental expressions of the organic nature of society in which members are reciprocally ends to each other. Property, likewise, is not only a possessing, but a "right," and thus, like all rights, involves the questions why and how far society should support the individual in his interests and claims. Let us examine each of these aspects further.
1. The Economic in Relation to Happiness.—Subject to the important qualifications to be made below under this and the succeeding sections, we note first that the supply of needs and wants by industry and commerce is ethically a good. A constant increase in production and consumption is at least a possible factor in a fuller life. Wealth is a possible condition of weal, even if it is not to be gratuitously identified with it. Rome is frequently cited as an example of the evil effects of material wealth. But it was not wealth per se, but wealth (a) gained by conquest, and exploitation, rather than by industry; (b) controlled by a minority; and (c) used in largesses or in crude spectacles—rather than democratically distributed and used to minister to higher wants. The present average income in the United States is about two hundred dollars a year per capita, too small a sum to permit comfortable living, sufficient education for children, and the satisfaction which even a very moderate taste may seek. From this point of view we may then ask of any industrial process or business method whether it is an economical and efficient method of production, and whether it naturally tends to stimulate increased production. To do this is—so far as it goes—ethically as well as economically desirable.
If wealth is a good, it might seem that property must be judged by the same standard, since it represents security in the satisfactions which wealth affords. But there is an important distinction. Wealth means enjoyment of goods and satisfaction of wants. Property means the title to the exclusive use or possession of goods. Hence the increase of property may involve increasing exclusion of part of the community from wealth, although the owners of the property may be increasing their own enjoyments. For, as pointed out very forcibly by Hadley in the first chapter of his Economics, the public wealth of a community is by no means equal to the sum of its private property. If all parks were divided up into private estates, all schoolhouses controlled by private owners, all water supplies and highways given into private control, the sum of private property might be very much increased; but the public wealth would be decreased. Property is one of the means of dealing with public wealth. It is important to bear in mind, however, that it is only one means. Wealth may be (1) privately owned and privately used; (2) privately owned and publicly or commonly used; (3) publicly owned, but privately used; (4) publicly owned and publicly or commonly used. Illustrations of these four methods are, for the first, among practically all peoples, clothing and tools; of the second, a private estate opened to public use—as a park; of the third, public lands or franchises leased to individuals; of the fourth, public highways, parks, navigable rivers, public libraries. Whether property in any given case is a means to happiness will depend, then, largely upon whether it operates chiefly to increase wealth or to diminish it. The view has not been infrequent that the wealth of the community is the sum of its private property. From this it is but a step to believe "that the acquisition of property is the production of wealth, and that he best serves the common good who, other things equal, diverts the larger share of the aggregate wealth to his own possession."[223] The ethical questions as to the relation of property to happiness involve accordingly the problem of justice and can be more conveniently considered under that head.
2. Relation to Character.—Even in its aspect of satisfying human wants, quantity of production is not the only consideration. As was pointed out in the chapters on Happiness, the satisfaction of any and every want is not necessarily a moral good. It depends upon the nature of the wants; and as the nature of the wants reflects the nature of the man who wants, the moral value of the economic process and of the wealth it provides must depend upon the relation of goods to persons. As economists we estimate values in terms of external goods or commodities; as ethical students we estimate values in terms of a certain quality of life. We must ask first how the satisfaction of wants affects the consumers.
Moral Cost of Production.—Consider next the producers. It is desirable to have cheap goods, but the price of goods or service is not measurable solely in terms of other commodities or service; the price of an article is also, as Thoreau has said, what it costs in terms of human life. There is cheap production which by this standard is dear. The introduction of machinery for spinning and weaving cotton cheapened cotton cloth, but the child labor which was supposedly necessary as a factor in cheap production, involving disease, physical stunting, ignorance, and frequently premature exhaustion or death, made the product too expensive to be tolerated. At least, it was at last recognized as too expensive in England; apparently the calculation has to be made over again in every community where a new system of child labor is introduced. What is true of child labor is true of many other forms of modern industry—the price in human life makes the product dear. The minute subdivision of certain parts of industry with the consequent monotony and mechanical quality of the labor, the accidents and diseases due to certain occupations, the devices to cheapen goods by ingredients which injure the health of the consumer, the employment of women under unsanitary conditions and for excessive hours with consequent risk to the health of themselves and their offspring—all these are part of the moral price of the present processes of industry and commerce.
Moreover, the relation of production to physical welfare is only one aspect of its effects upon life and character. We may properly ask of any process or system whether it quickens intelligence or deadens it, whether it necessitates the degradation of work to drudgery, and whether it promotes freedom or hampers it. To answer this last question we shall have to distinguish formal from real freedom. It might be that a system favorable to the utmost formal freedom—freedom of contract—would result in the most entire absence of that real freedom which implies real alternatives. If the only alternative is, this or starve, the real freedom is limited.
Property and Character.—Viewed on its positive side, property means an expansion of power and freedom. To seize, master, and possess is an instinct inbred by the biological process. It is necessary for life; it is a form of the Wille zum Leben or Wille zur Macht which need not be despised. But in organized society possession is no longer mere animal instinct; through expression in a social medium and by a social person it becomes a right of property. This is a far higher capacity; like all rights it involves the assertion of personality and of a rational claim upon fellow members of society for their recognition and backing. Fichte's doctrine, that property is essential to the effective exercise of freedom, is a strong statement of its moral importance to the individual.