The Evolution of the Country Community / A Study in Religious Sociology

by Warren H. Wilson

In dealing with a social whole, to accomplish certain purposes one must deal with it in social terms. Social service is not quantitative, but qualitative. Ministry to a community is not uniformly applied to all the members. In social service there is no such thing as equality of all the population. The differing values of men in a social population are determined, as other values are measured, by the working of the law of diminishing returns.

Roughly stated, this law is that successive additions of any valued thing bring ever diminished returns. The first quantity of anything is of infinite value. For later increments the value is measurable, and ever less with the increase. The application of this law in economics is stated as follows by Professor John Bates Clark:

"Labor, as thus applied to land, is subject to a law of diminishing returns. Put one man on a quarter section of land, containing prairie and forest, and he will get a rich return. Two laborers on the same ground will get less per man; three will get still less; and, if you enlarge the force to ten, it may be that the last man will get wages only."

"Modern studies of value, show that doses of consumer's goods, given in a series to the same person have less and less utility per dose. The final utility theory of value rests on the same principle as does the theory of diminishing returns from agriculture; and this principle has a far wider range of new applications."

"We have undertaken to generalize the law that is at the basis of the theory of value. In reality, it is all-comprehensive. The first generalization to be made consists in applying the law, not to single articles, but to consumers' wealth in all its forms. The richer man becomes, the less can his wealth do for him. Not only a series of goods that are all alike, but a succession of units of wealth itself, with no such limitation, on its forms, becomes less and less useful per unit. Give to a man not coats, but 'dollars,' one after another, and the utility of the last will still be less than that of any other. The early dollars feed, clothe and shelter the man, but the last one finds it hard to do anything for him."[29]

By this law successive deposits of immigrants and successive gains in the American population are reducing the valuation of men for religious, moral and educational use. The first man in any historic experience is of infinite value. The first American, Columbus, will be famous forever, but not because of any talents or enterprises of his. As a matter of fact he blundered in discovering America and died ignorant of the feat he had actually accomplished. But because he was the first white man on a new continent he had infinite historical value. When the early Europeans were increased to ten or to one thousand each of them entered into fame, though men like John Smith were commonplace enough in their performances. Their fame is measurable, but still great. When the number of Americans was increased to eight millions everyone thought himself a great citizen, the founder of a family and a potential millionaire. Those were still the days of exceptional personality. The type of man in those times was the landowner, the pioneer and the statesman. But now there are ninety million Americans, all the valuable lands are assigned, all the best positions are filled, every job is taken, and ten million of the population are concerned about the problem of daily bread. These ten million people are the marginal Americans. They are breadwinners, and the breadwinner is the unit of value on whom the standard of American social and religious life is measured. So far as there can be an American type on whom policies in public life are measured, that type is today the breadwinner. In the city the breadwinner is a working man or an immigrant. In the country the marginal man is the tenant farmer; or a working farmer, though he be the owner. The marginal man represents the value of all men in the community.

The law of diminishing returns works in the factory for fixing the wages in any scale which prevails throughout a level of pay. It is equally efficient in leveling men in the community. The employer does not pay the working man on any level of wages in accordance with the value of the few brilliant, trusty or inventive men in that group, but he pays each man just that wage which he must offer to the last man he hires. The marginal man standardizes the wage. The religious values of men are standardized not upon the brilliant or saintly or accomplished, not upon the well-to-do members of the community, but upon the poor who are just able to stand and maintain themselves in the life of that community.

The working of this law is not a matter of persuasion. It is the inflexible condition with which religious and ethical institutions are confronted. Churches should therefore estimate their policies by the responses of the marginal people of the community. Religious standards of value should be measured by final utility, not initial utility. The complaint against the church today is reducible to this: that she standardizes her ideals and her policies in accordance with the prosperous and well-to-do. The eloquence and the character of her ministers, the kind of music with which God is worshipped, the comfortable pews, the carpets on the floor, are all of them unlike the public hall which is supported by the dues of the poor. The taste expressed in church matters is rather literary and aesthetic than popular. The church which would appeal to the whole community must standardize her work upon the poor man, and make her appeal to him.

This principle is not only scientifically correct, but it works out in practise. A minister who came into a well organized country community, where there were a few land-holders, many tenants and numbers of farm lands, found that the only appeal by which the whole community could be reached was an appeal directed to the marginal people in the community. When he sought the tenant farmer, he secured with him the land-holder, and when he went after the hired man on the farm, he secured the farmer who employed him. When he gained the adherence of the boys and girls he secured the support of their parents, and when he rendered service to little children, he could safely rely upon the gratitude and loyalty of their mothers and fathers.

This was the kind of work which Jesus did. He frankly made a selection of the people to whom he should minister.[30] He knew no phrases about all men being equal, and he made no profession of impartiality such as today causes many ministers to loiter among the well-to-do, who care not for them. Jesus said he had no time to spend with well people, because he was sent to the sick. But the philosophy of his action was seen in the fact that when he ministered to the sick he himself helped the well. He "preached the gospel to the poor," but not because he had any prejudice against the rich. By ministering to the poor he applied his gospel to the margin of the community. That gospel has been of equal value to the rich man, because the spiritual experiences of the poor are the experience also of the rich. The modern minister who goes after rich men specifically, or who goes after them with the same vigor with which he seeks the poor, will receive but a grudging welcome. But if he awakens the gratitude and support of the poor, he will find himself sought by the rich, and sustained by their abundant gifts.