CHAPTER VIII
THE HORSE-TRADE
Twenty-five years ago an American, himself a victim of the commercial system and dying of consumption, wrote a novel which contained a description of a horse-trade. The novel was rejected by many publishers, but came finally to one reader who recognized this horse-trading scene as the epitome of American civilization. He persuaded the author to rewrite the book, putting the horse-trade first, and making everything else in the novel subsidiary; this was done, and the result was the most sensational success in the history of American fiction. Young and old, rich and poor, high and low, all Americans recognized in the opening scene of “David Harum” the creed they believed in, the code they followed, the success they sought: they bought six hundred thousand copies of the book. I was young at the time, but I recall how all the people I knew were shaking their sides with laughter, discussing the story with one another, delighting in every step of the process whereby David got the better of the deacon.
Let us analyze this horse-trade, taking our data from the book. First, there is the lie of the seller, describing a horse which he believes to be useless. “He’s wuth two hundred jest as he stands. He ain’t had no trainin’, an’ he c’n draw two men in a road wagin better’n fifty.” And second, there is the lie of the purchaser, as the purchaser himself boasts about it afterwards: “Wa’al, the more I looked at him, the better I liked him, but I only says, ‘Jes so, jes so, he may be wuth the money, but jes as I’m fixed now he ain’t wuth it to me, an’ I hain’t got that much money with me if he was,’ I says.”
So we see that in a horse-trade both the traders lie; and further we see that each pretends to be telling the truth, and makes an effort to persuade the other that he is telling the truth. Watching the ignoble process, we perceive that neither of the traders is ever sure how far his own lies are being accepted; nor is he sure what modicum of truth there may be in the other’s lies. So each is in a state of uncertainty and fear. When the process has been completed, one trader has a sense of triumph, mingled with contempt for the victim; the other trader has a sense of hatred, mingled with resolve to “get square.”
It is further to be pointed out that this conflict of wits, this modern form of the duello, while it seems ruthless and cruel, yet has its own strict ethical code. David would lie to the deacon, but he would not pick the deacon’s pocket, nor would he stab the deacon in the back, no matter how badly the deacon might have defeated him in commercial war. We observe also that the author feels under the necessity of persuading us that David would not have cheated the deacon unless he had first been cheated by the deacon; this being the conventional lie of the horse-trader turned novelist. We may also observe that next to the impulse to acquisitiveness, the supreme quality of this Yankee farmer, comes the impulse to sociability; having consummated his bargain, he tells his sister about it, and the humanness of the story lies not merely in the triumph of David, but in his pleasure in telling his sister. And observe that David tells her the truth without reservation. There might be other matters about which he would lie to his sister, but so far as concerns this horse-trade, he knows that she will not betray him to the deacon.
When the first savage offered a fish in exchange for a cocoanut, and made statements as to the freshness of the fish, and the difficulties and perils of fishing, the trade-lie was a comparatively simple thing. But in the process of industrial evolution, there have been developed so many variations and complexities that an encyclopedia of occupational deceptions would be required. Suffice it to say that the principle is understood in every nation and clime, being embodied in innumerable maxims and witticisms: caveat emptor: business is business; dog eat dog; the devil take the hindmost; look out for Number One; do others or they will do you; self-preservation is the first law of Nature. In a civilization based upon commercial competition, laissez faire and freedom of contract, the lie of the horse-trader becomes the basis of all the really significant actions of men and women.
So obvious is this, so clearly is it set forth in the wisdom of the race, that at first thought it seems surprising that anyone could be led into believing a trade-lie. But it is obvious that the test of a competent liar is that he gets himself believed; like the endless struggle between the gun-maker and the armor-plate maker, is the struggle between the trader and his victim. The trader is aided by the fact that an impulse towards constructiveness has been planted in the human heart, which breeds a repugnance to dishonesty. So there are ideals and aspirations, religions, loyalties and patriotisms; there are the Christs and Galileos of history, the Parsivals and Don Quixotes of legend. As the trader himself puts it, there is a sucker born every minute. The trader kills a silly sheep, and puts the skin over his wolf’s hide; so we have religious institutions and ethical systems, philanthropic endowments, professional codes, political platforms; we have honors, offices and titles, proprieties and respectabilities, graces, refinements, etiquettes and standards of good taste. Many of these things begin naively and in good faith; but in a society given up to commercial competition, and dominated by systems of greed, they all become trade-lies, and are used as weapons in the war of the classes.
CHAPTER IX
THE CLASS LIE
In the stage of economic evolution where the savage exchanges a fish for a cocoanut, the balance of advantage in the trade may be equal. The fisherman may need the cocoanut as badly as the cocoanut-gatherer needs the fish. But as soon as we come to the stage where tokens are accepted, there begins a shifting of the balance of advantage; for the reason that the seller comes to specialize in the selling of one thing, whereas the more complex the society, the more different things the buyer must buy, and so he remains an amateur as to each. Moreover, the sellers learn to combine; they form partnerships, firms, corporations, alliances, leagues, associations, parties, classes; the buyer, on the other hand, remains unorganized and helpless. He is the consumer, who takes what he can get; he is the proletarian, who has only his chains to lose; he is that plaything of the competitive process, that jest of the trader through the ages, the general public. “The public be damned,” said a great seller of railway transportation, and his phrase has become the corner-stone of capitalist civilization.
Nineteen hundred years ago a revolutionary economist remarked, “To him that hath shall be given; while from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.” And this economic process is one which tends continually to accelerate, multiplying itself by geometrical progression. In present-day society, the sellers are nearly all organized, while labor is only ten per cent organized, and the ultimate consumer is not organized at all. We have thus the combination of a monopoly price with a competitive wage, and the surplus wealth of the world is drawn by automatic process into the hands of a small class. The world’s selling power is now vested in combinations of capital, called “trusts,” which present themselves in the aspect of enormous fortresses of lies.