Competition; Monopolies -- United States; Trusts, Industrial
The above beneficences require outright giving; but there are many ways
in which the fraternal spirit of men works to cause men to treat each
other in business affairs more liberally than they would if competition
were the only governing motive. In very many cases of the employment of
labor, the wages paid are higher than the rate which competition alone
would fix. It is true that this is largely due to a selfish motive. The
men are more contented and industrious than when their wages are lower.
There are always plenty of applicants for any vacant position. The men
are not prone to find fault with their pay, knowing that plenty would be
glad to fill their places. At the same time, it is certainly true that
in many cases a principal motive for giving higher wages is the desire
to be liberal and generous with the workers whose labor brings income
and profits. Again it is very frequently the case that mills and mines
are kept in operation in dull times, when goods must be sold at a loss,
if sold at all, simply to keep the employees from the destitution and
suffering consequent upon idleness. Cases of especial personal
benevolence are still more common. There are tens of thousands of
working people to-day rendering service whom their employers well know
to be unprofitable servants, but who are retained because their youth or
age or incapacity renders them proper objects of assistance in this way,
a sort of charity far better than outright gift.
In business enterprises, again, the spirit of fraternity is widely
diffused. As we have seen, it has been one principal cause of the
formation of trusts and combinations to limit and restrain competition.
There are also a growing number of enterprises which are purely
philanthropic, such as the provision of cheap and healthy homes for
working men and women.
In the conduct of business, too, public opinion does not approve of the
man who exacts the utmost farthing, and weighs and measures to the
closest fraction. The most grasping creditor, who precipitates the ruin
upon the bankrupt, and the landlord or money-lender, who exacts
pitilessly and turns a deaf ear to the call of a brother for mercy, are
also condemned at the bar of public opinion.
These and many other considerations lead us to some knowledge of the
inestimable value of the principle of fraternity to correct the harsh
and inequitable working of the industrial organism. It remains only to
be said that in this sphere of action its influence is but a small
fraction of what it ought to be and what it promises to become.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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