CHAP. XXXVII Is Socialism Indif ferent to Individual Freedom? young Japanese greet the message of Carlyle, Emerson, Thoreau and Nietzsche, testifies that the idealizing of individual self-determination and initiative is balm to their souls. The antithesis socialism-individualism leads many to imagine that socialists propose to reverse the beneficent process of liberation and bring in state ownership of the individual. The earlier pictures of the "coming" collectivist state certainly gave ground for such suspicion. Of late, however, it has become plain that the real issue is, Private capitalism or public capitalism? No doubt, socialists would take away much of the initiative and decision now enjoyed by the captain of industry. They are foes of commercial individualism. But they confidently expect that under public capitalism the hand workers will have more freedom than they are allowed under the existing régime. Whether or not their anticipations are justified, the constant shadowing of the collectivist movement by a current of anarchism, the trend away from state socialism toward guild socialism, and the self-assertive temper of every aroused working class forbids us to believe that the proletariat will ever consent to barter their hard wen freedom for ease and plenty. If private capitalism is to be abandoned for public capitalism, it will be because the masses expect at least as much liberty as they now have and much more opportunity. COM CHAPTER XXXVIII COMMERCIALIZATION СНАР. XXXVIII Role of the Motive OMMERCIALIZATION is the increasing subjection of any calling or function to the profits motive. Normally this motive has a large and legitimate part to play in society. To it Profits we appeal in order to call into being the myriad forms of industry and commerce necessary to provide for the wants of the public. Even here, however, it may govern only in a general way. In each particular transaction it should find counterpoise in the desire to keep faith with the patron by supplying only honest goods and loyal services. In a bearer of responsibility, however, such as clergyman, teacher, judge, official, artist or journalist, it is expected that lust of gain will be quite subordinated to the obligation to render a vital service or discharge an essential function. Into the production of a good or a service may enter various motives which hold the profits motive in check, viz., 1. Pleasure in creative activity. 2. Pride in the perfection of one's product. 3. Accepted standards of technical excellence which forbid the putting forth of a ware or a service which falls below a certain degree of merit. 4. Abhorrence of sham or humbug in one's work. Desire to render loyal service, to market genuine goods. 5. Solicitude for the welfare of the customer or patron, prompting one to refuse to supply him with that which will disappoint, defraud, or harm him. 6. Doing one's work as a service to society.1 There is commercialization when the profits motive gains the Le, acting on the principle of Comte: "Every person who lives by any useful work should be habituated to regard himself not as an individual working for his own private benefit, but as a public functionary working for the benefit of society; and to regard his wages of whatever sort as the provision made by society to enable him to carry on his labor." Motives of CHAP. XXXVIII We Are Not Morally Decadent Relations and Con- Direct upper hand of these nobler motives. In case the relations between producer and consumer, or between server and served, continue in the same intimacy, the profits motive will not play a greater rôle unless the motives which limit it are weakened. In such a case commercialization would be the result and proof of moral decay. Now, in contemporary society there is no general moral decay. Using the ancient test relations as a dial face, the onward movement in humanity, sympathy and charity is most cheering. In the treatment of children, of women, of the aged, of dependents, of convicts, of aliens, of underlings, of the weaker race or class by the stronger race or class, the improvement in our times is beyond all question. Nor are we in doubt as to the causes of this rapid humanization. With the vanishing of personal encounter, the passing of judicial torture, branding, stocks, pillory, whipping post and cart's tail, the renouncing of flogging and keelhauling in the navy, the vanishing of public executions, the abandonment of cock-fighting and bear-baiting, the outlawry of prize fighting, the restraining of brutal teamsters, the substitution of electricity for the horse, the removal of the diseased, maimed and misshapen from the streets to public institutions, the feelings are no longer calloused as of yore, and human good will is able to assert itself with its original native force. The encroachment of the profits motive in our time is, therefore, not chargeable to moral decay. It is a consequence of certain transformations which have occurred in our economic relations. The greater social distance between producer and consumer Less and less often nowadays is the user of one's ware a concrete known person to whom one feels a sense of responsibility. One's product passes out into that vague mass, the "public," and there is lost to view. Hence, the baker who kneads "chalk and alum and plaster" into his loaf may be no miscreant, after all, for he cannot know just who will eat that loaf or what gripe it will give him. Only a villain would fit out an unsuspecting customer with a life preserver filled with sawdust instead of cork: but the manufacturers who a few years ago were found to be equipping excursion steamers with these spurious "life preservers may have been far from moral monsters. They were supplying their treacherous wares not to men and women, but to "the market." CHAP. XXXVIII The Cor alizes The corporate form of business organization thrusts apart producers and consumers. The stockholders on whose behalf in- De-personiquity is done do not consciously will it. It is not their wish Business that children should be worn out for them, or workmen maimed Relations, in avoidable industrial accidents, or consumers defrauded, or the public taste corrupted. They instigate such wickedness only because they know not what they do when they clamor for dividends. Their avarice is reflected in the conduct of the business, but not their good will. Not only does incorporation take personal responsibility out of business relations, but every year sees more savings banks, trust companies and insurance companies come between industrial concerns and those who provide the money. This makes it still more difficult for the conscience of the latter to influence the management. Nevertheless, when a corporation becomes so large that it fills a place in the public eye, it develops a sense of responsibility of its own. Its volume of output is so great that its products must be well spoken of everywhere. Hence, it strives for excellence and sincerity in its goods and acts on the maxim, "the satisfied customer is the best advertisement." Owing to its conspicuousness it is sensitive to public opinion. It feels obliged to maintain a reputation so good that it can draw into its service men of the highest character. Its treatment of labor is so wellknown among workingmen that, if it acquires a bad name, it will be unable to attract labor of the best quality. Therefore, the great corporations take the lead not only in square-dealing with the customer, but in looking after the safety, health, and welfare of their employees. But the poration Behaves Like a Person made The growing differentiation between principals and subor- Customdinates. In large concerns the men at the top may adopt with Crime impunity greedy policies which they well know cannot be carried out without deceit or corruption. They would not do such dirty work themselves, but they require others to do it. Upon their subordinates they impose the obligation to get "results," but are very careful not to learn of the crooked means by which alone the "results" they insist on may be obtained. The veins of business like the veins of the body have valves, their purposes be CHAP. XXXVIII Commercialization of the Stage Commercialization of the Newspaper ing to check the return flow to the principals of knowledge of the odious practices and the blistering tirades to which the policies they insist on give rise. Safe behind their cordon of underlings they instigate crimes which they lack the nerve to commit in the open. The increasing prominence of capital in the practice of an art or profession tends to subordinate artistic or professional conscience to profit. This is illustrated in the commercialization of the stage. As the theater-going public becomes accustomed to more sumptuous and costly stage effects, the actor-manager gives way to the capitalist-manager. The actor-manager is dominated by the idea of "elevating the stage," of making the drama a great and uplifting social force. His master-dream is to present Shakespere, and "Shakespere spells ruin." Great actors like Booth and Irving pass their lives either as "stars" accumulating a fortune, or as managers squandering it in giving the public drama finer than it is willing to pay for. But, with the greater costliness of theatrical production, the capitalist-manager comes to the fore, while the successful actor, even the greatest, remains throughtout his career an employee. Generally this type of producer tries to see not how high one dare go, but how low one dare go. Ideals and social aims are contemptuously kicked out of the theatrical business. The only queston is, "What will the Public like?" and this is answered frequently by a vulgar avaricious man who has no comprehension of what the public will like in the long run and no idea that the taste of the public admits of being educated upward as well as downward. THE PROFITS MOTIVE AND THE NEWSPAPERS In newspaper publishing the capital factor gains constantly on the service factor, with the result that less and less is the editorowner able to hire the capital he needs, while more and more the owner is a capitalist who hires the editors he needs. The capitalist-owner is likely to run the newspaper as a pure "business proposition," i.e., as he would run a theater or hotel, and less often than the editor-owner does he see it as a great social instrumentality. Furthermore, the newspaper is a peculiar undertaking in that it unites two services altogether different - the purveyance of news and opinions and the sale of publicity in the form of advertising. The former is a responsible public service, |