Ethics

by John Dewey; James Hayden Tufts

Socialism as theory of distribution does not necessarily imply public operation of production. By graded taxation the proceeds of production might be taken by society and either held, used, or distributed on some supposedly more equitable basis. To give point to any inquiry as to the justice of a proposed distribution, it would be desirable to know what is the present distribution. Unfortunately, no figures are accepted by all students. Spahr's Present Distribution of Wealth in the United States estimates that seven-eighths of the families in the United States own only one-eighth of the wealth, and that one per cent. own more than the remaining ninety-nine per cent. This has been challenged, but any estimate made by the economists shows such enormous disproportion as to make it incredible that the present distribution can be regarded as just on any definition of justice other than "according to the principles of contract and competition."
Suppose, then, the question is raised, How can
we make a just distribution?

Criteria Proposed.—The simplest, and at the same time most mechanical and abstract, method would be to divide all goods equally. This would be to ignore all moral and other differences, as indeed is practically done in the suffrage. If all men are accounted equal in the State, why not in wealth? It may be admitted that, if society were to distribute, it would have to do it on some system which could be objectively administered. To divide wealth according to merit, or according to efforts, or according to needs, would be a far more moral method. But it is difficult to see how, in the case of material goods or their money equivalent, such a division could be made by any being not omniscient as well as absolutely just. If we are to consider distribution as administered by society, we seem reduced to the alternative of the present system or a system of equality.

1. The Individualistic Theory.—It is indeed supposed by some that the individualistic or competitive system distributes on a moral basis: viz., according to merit. This claim would have to meet the following criticisms:

(1) The first abstraction which this individualistic principle of reward usually makes it that it gives a man credit for all he achieves, or charges him with all his failures, without recognizing the threefold origin of these achievements or failures. Heredity, society, personal choice, have each had some share in the result. But, in considering the ethics of competition upon this maxim, there is evidently no attempt to discriminate between these several sources. The man born with industrial genius, presented by society with the knowledge of all that has been done in the past, and equipped by society with all the methods and tools society can devise, certainly has an advantage over the man of moderate talents and no education. To claim that the first should be justly rewarded for his superiority would imply that the reception of one gift constitutes a just claim for another.

(2) Secondly, the theory as applied to our present system is guilty of a further abstraction in assuming that the chief, if not the only, way to deserve reward is by individualistic shrewdness and energy.

(3) It measures desert by service rendered without taking any account of motive or even of intent. The captain of industry performs an important service to society; therefore, it is argued, he should be rewarded accordingly, quite irrespective of the question whether he was aiming at social welfare or at selfish gain. It may even be plausibly argued that to reward men financially for good motives would be bribing men to be honest. It is true that financial rewards will not make good citizens, but this is irrelevant. The point is that whatever other reasons,—expediency, difficulty of estimating intent and motive,—may be urged for abstracting from everything but the result, the one reason which cannot be urged is, such abstraction is just. A person has rights only because he is a social person. But to call a man a social person because he incidentally produces useful results, is to say that purpose and will are negligible elements of personality.[243]

2. Equal Division.—The system of equal division is liable to the following criticism. In their economic services men are not equal. They are unequal not merely in talent and ability; not merely in the value of their work; they are unequal in their disposition. To treat idle and industrious, useless and useful, slow and quick alike is not equality, but inequality. It is to be guilty of as palpable an abstraction as to say that all men are equally free because they are not subject to physical constraint. Real equality will try to treat like conditions alike, and unlike character, efforts, or services differently.

There is, moreover, a psychological objection which would weigh against an equal division even if such were regarded as just. The average man perhaps prefers an economic order in which there are prizes and blanks to an order in which every man draws out the same. He prefers an exciting game to a sure but tame return of his investment. He may call for a "square deal," but we must remember that a "square deal" in the great American game from which the metaphor is taken is not designed to make the game less one of chance. It is designed to give full scope to luck and nerve. A game in which every player was sure to win, but also sure to win just what he had put in, would be equitable, but it would not be a game. An equal distribution might rob life of its excitement and its passion. Possibly the very strain of the process develops some elements of character which it would be unfortunate to lose.

Is there no alternative possible for society except an equality which is external only, and therefore unequal, or an inequality which charges a man with all the accrued benefits or evils of his ancestry? Must we either recognize no moral differences in men, or else be more merciless than the old orthodox doctrine of hereditary or imputed guilt? The theological doctrine merely made a man suffer for his ancestors' sins; the doctrine of unlimited individualism would damn him not only for his ancestors' sins and defects, but for the injustice suffered by his ancestors at the hands of others. The analysis of the sources of a man's ability may give a clue to a third possibility, and it is along this line that the social conscience of to-day is feeling its way.

3. A Working Programme.—A man's power is due (1) to physical heredity; (2) to social heredity, including care, education, and the stock of inventions, information, and institutions which enables him to be more efficient than the savage; and finally (3) to his own efforts. Individualism may properly claim this third factor. It is just to treat men unequally so far as their efforts are unequal. It is socially desirable to give as much incentive as possible to the full development of every one's powers. But the very same reason demands that in the first two respects we treat men as equally as possible. For it is for the good of the social body to get the most out of its members, and it can get the most out of them only by giving them the best start possible. In physical heredity the greater part is, as yet, wholly outside control, but there is an important factor which is in the sphere of moral action, namely, the physical condition of the parents, particularly of the mother. Conditions of food, labor, and housing should be such that every child may be physically well born. In the various elements included under social heredity society has a freer hand. Not a free hand, for physical and mental incapacity limit the amount of social accumulation which can be communicated, but we are only beginning to appreciate how much of the deficiency formerly acquiesced in as hopeless may be prevented or remedied by proper food, hygiene, and medical care. Completely equal education, likewise, cannot be given; not in kind, for not all children have like interests and society does not want to train all for the same task; nor in quantity, for some will have neither the ability nor the disposition to do the more advanced work. But as, little by little, labor becomes in larger degree scientific, the ratio of opportunities for better trained men will increase, and as education becomes less exclusively academic, and more an active preparation for all kinds of work, the interests of larger and larger numbers of children will be awakened. Such a programme as this is one of the meanings of the phrase "equal opportunity," which voices the demand widely felt for some larger conception of economic and social justice than now obtains. It would make formal freedom, formal "equality" before the law, less an empty mockery by giving to every child some of the power and knowledge which are the necessary conditions of real freedom.