The Moral Economy

by Ralph Barton Perry

The external environment of life embraces not only mechanical nature, but also such outlying units of life as have not yet been brought into harmonious relations. Conflict between individuals, tribes, races, or nations operates in a manner analogous to mechanical nature. It exerts a constant pressure in the direction of greater strength and efficiency. In order that man shall not be robbed by his enemies of what he already has, he must forever be attempting to make himself impregnable and formidable.

But war and the struggle with nature not only put a premium on the better organization of life; they also make it a condition of permanence. Superior individuals survive when inferior individuals perish in the struggle, or the superior type obtains an ascendency over the inferior. In human warfare the defeated party is rarely if ever utterly annihilated; it tends, however, to lose its prestige or even its identity through being assimilated to the victorious party. In either case that form of life which in conflict proves itself the stronger, tends to prevail, through the exclusion of those forms which prove themselves weaker.

An unfavorable environment has, then, operated externally to develop coherence and unity {132} in life. But the cost has been prodigious, and must be subtracted from the gain. For there is no virtue in conflict save the strength of the victor. Man has made a virtue of this necessity; but to obviate so dire a necessity becomes one of the first tasks which civilization undertakes. The attempt to eliminate conflict, and reduce to a minimum the sacrifice of special interests, marks the operation of the internal or moral principle of progress. During the historical period this principle assumes a constantly greater prominence.

A society may be said to be internally progressive when it can afford to withdraw some of its energies from the struggle for existence, and devote them to the improvement of method and the saving of waste. Its stability and security must be so far guaranteed as to make it safe to undertake a reconstruction, calculated to provide more fully for its constituent interests and develop its latent possibilities. There now obtains, within limits that tend steadily to expand, what Bagehot calls "government by discussion," that is, the regulation of action by the invention, selection, and trial of the best means. This substitution of rational procedure for custom is an irreversible and germinal process. Let me quote Bagehot's account of it:

A government by discussion, if it can be borne, at once breaks down the yoke of fixed custom. The {133} idea of the two is inconsistent. As far as it goes, the mere putting up of a subject to discussion is a clear admission that that subject is in no degree settled by established rule, and that men are free to choose in it. . . . And if a single subject or group of subjects be once admitted to discussion, ere long the habit of discussion comes to be established, the sacred charm of use and wont to be dissolved. "Democracy," it has been said in modern times, "is like the grave; it takes, but it does not give." The same is true of "discussion." Once effectually submit a subject to that ordeal, and you can never withdraw it again; you can never again clothe it with mystery, or fence it by consecration; it remains forever open to free choice, and exposed to profane deliberation.[3]

The strength of custom or established authority lies in prompt and undivided action against external enemies; but its weakness lies in its excessive cost to the interests within. And when there is leisure and security for deliberation, the policy and organization of society must respond at once to the claims of these interests. Development is now due to a moral rather than to a mechanical principle; that is, the surviving type of life is due not to pressure and elimination from without, but to a provident concern that emanates from within. There is a deliberate intention to promote survival, those interests alone being restricted or suppressed which do not comply with this intention. There evolves not a selected group of strong individuals, but a strong community, strong because both full of life, or rich {134} in incentive, and also harmonious. And within such a community the strength of individuals lies not in a sheer power to resist the strain of competition, but in the rational and moral capacity to utilize the resources of the entire community. Through moral organization the strong are made stronger at the same time that the weak are made strong.

Strictly speaking, there is only one internal principle of progress, namely, rationality. By rationality, in this connection, I mean the knowledge of the good, and the correction of existing usages through which it is accidentally or wantonly frustrated. If fulfilment be the motive of life, and maximum fulfilment be the good, then any existing usage stands condemned when it is proved to involve unnecessary sacrifice. And such usages will be condemned, and in the long run rejected, wherever there is an opportunity for self-assertion and discussion among the various interests concerned. But such correction may be initiated either by a positive or a negative motive. It may result either from the action of those who seek constructively to promote the general welfare of society, or from the action of those who protest against society in behalf of neglected interests. The first is constructive reform, the second, revolution.

Constructive reform is the work of disinterested {135} reflection. It may originate in speculation, as political or social theory; or it may originate in the solution of a practical problem. Plato has described the type of mind which in either case it requires: a mind which is free from individual or party bias, and which represents and co-ordinates all the interests of the community. Now the failure of political and social theories as measures of reform is proverbial; none failed more completely and conspicuously than Plato's own. And it is not difficult to see why this should be the case; for, as a rule, they are adapted neither to the habits and intelligence of the time, nor to the actual instruments of practical efficiency. But it may be observed that the distance between the philosopher and the man of affairs is considerably shorter than it used to be. The method of discussion being once generally adopted, action, both individual and social, is pervaded with theory. Even the man of affairs cannot easily avoid being a philosopher.

And even in distinguishing as sharply as I have between theory and practice, I have simply followed a customary habit of thought that is on the whole misleading. For, in truth, it is as impossible for the man of affairs to avoid disinterested reflection, as it is for the commercial traveller to be unsociable. The activity of the one has to do with the organization of a wide range of {136} interests, as the activity of the other has to do with the capitalization of good-fellowship.

Those of you who are familiar with the First Book of Plato's Republic will remember the account given there of the forced benevolence of the tyrant. It is, I believe, one of the great classics in ethical theory; and although its full meaning will not appear until we deal directly with the problem of government, I must allude to it here for the sake of the principle involved. The sophist of the dialogue, one Thrasymachus, attempts to overthrow Socrates's conclusion that virtue is essentially beneficent, by pointing to the case of the tyrant, who is eminent and powerful, as every one would wish to be, but who is at the same time wholly unscrupulous. He is the symbol of success, in that he can on all occasions do what it pleases him to do, and with no regard for the feelings of others. Now Socrates in his reply is not satisfied to show that even the tyrant must have some scruples; he goes to the length of asserting that the tyrant must of all persons in the community have the most scruples. And the reason which Socrates advances is unanswerable. The tyrant is the one person in the community who has to please everybody. He owes his position and power, not to any directly productive activity, such as agriculture, industry, or military service, but wholly to his skill in {137} organizing and promoting interests that are not primarily his own. To be sure, he has his hire; but to earn it he must pay every man his price.