To put it otherwise, the institutional forces supporting market values
vary not only in different occupation groups, but along lines of general
class position, and in the case of those classes that are handicapped by
an unfavorable economic situation the weakness of these forces offers an
urgent problem, which the labor movement, in the largest sense, is an
endeavor to solve.
I do not anticipate that the struggle of classes over pecuniary
distribution will go to any great extremes. It seems more probable that
facility of intercourse, democratic education, underlying community of
interest, and the large human spirit that is growing upon us, will
maintain a working solidarity. Common ideals of some sort will pervade
the whole people; and they cannot be ideals dictated by any one class.
They must be such as can be made acceptable to an intelligent democracy,
and will rule the minds of rich and poor alike; no class will be able to
shut them out. They will be violated, but only in the clandestine way
that all accepted principles are violated. Whoever has wealth, whoever
has power, I am inclined to think that the sway of the public mind will
be such as to insure the use of these, in the main, for what is regarded
as the common welfare.
In spite of the rank growth of many abuses, our society is comparatively
free from the more stubborn obstacles to democratic betterment. I mean
long-settled habits and traditions whose spirit is opposed to such
betterment. Our theory, our formal organization, our training, are all
favorable to rational democracy. The domination of a commercial class,
so far as it exists, is but a mushroom growth, and those who, to their
own surprise, find themselves exercising it, have no deep belief in its
justice or permanence. It is an economic fact, but not a tradition or a
faith. It is but a slight thing compared with the indurated mediævalism
and militarism of Europe. Our people have not only democratic ideals,
but a well-grounded faith in their ability to realize them.
_PART VII_
INTELLIGENT PROCESS
CHAPTER XXIX
INTELLIGENCE IN SOCIAL FUNCTION
INTELLIGENCE AS FORESIGHT—A TENTATIVE PROCESS—A PHASE OF THE SOCIAL
PROCESS—GROUP INTELLIGENCE—INTELLIGENT PROCESS INCLUDES THE WHOLE
MIND—ITS DRAMATIC CHARACTER—RELATION TO DRAMATIC LITERATURE—MODERN
ENLARGEMENT OF INTELLIGENT PROCESS
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