A group practicing cut-throat competition will simply reverse the
order: first, struggle to put rivals out of the field; then, monopoly
with unlimited power to control the market or possess the soil. It
appeals to nature's struggle for existence as its standard for human
life. It too sets a high value upon liberty in the sense of freedom
from control, but originating as it did in resistance to control by
privilege and other aspects of dominance, it has never learned the
defects of a liberty which takes no account of ignorance, poverty, and
ill health. It knows the liberty of nature, the liberty of the strong
and the swift, but not the liberty achieved by the common effort for
all. It knows justice, but a justice which is likely to be defined as
securing to each his natural liberty, and which therefore means
non-interference with the struggle for existence except to prevent
violence and fraud. It takes no account as to whether the struggle
kills few or many, or distributes goods widely or sparingly, or whether
indeed there is any room at the table which civilization spreads;
though it does not begrudge charity if administered under that name.
A coöperating group has two working principles: first, common purpose
and common good; second, that men can achieve by common effort what
they cannot accomplish singly. The first, reinforced by the actual
interchange of ideas and services, tends to favor equality. It implies
mutual respect, confidence, and good-will. The second favors a
constructive and progressive attitude, which will find standards
neither in nature nor in humanity's past, since it conceives man able
to change conditions to a considerable extent and thus to realize new
goods.
These principles tend toward a type of liberty different from those
just mentioned. As contrasted with the liberty of a dominant group,
coöperation favors a liberty for all, a liberty of live and let live, a
tolerance and welcome for variation in type, provided only this is
willing to make its contribution to the common weal. Instead of
imitation or passive acceptance of patterns on the part of the
majority, it stimulates active construction. As contrasted with the
liberty favored in competing groups, coöperation would emphasize
positive control over natural forces, over health conditions, over
poverty and fear. It would make each person share as fully as possible
in the knowledge and strength due to combined effort, and thus liberate
him from many of the limitations which have hitherto hampered him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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