Following out the assumption that competition is the life of economic society, one arrives at a necessary corollary to the general theory. The purpose of competition is to injure, wipe out and dispose of the competitor. Therefore the misfortune of our competitors is our good fortune. This would lead, as applied to the actual conditions of life, to some such formula as: 1. Bankrupt your competitor and you will profit. 2. Impoverish your neighbor and you will benefit. 3. Injure your fellow-man and you will gain. Stated thus baldly and harshly, these three propositions sound incredibly silly, particularly in view of the example the world has just had of large scale competition--the World War--yet they are a fair picture of the line of thought and conduct accepted as rational by modern economic society. The normal processes of competition are directed to the destruction of competitors. War is a frankly avowed means of smashing rivals. Nationalism is built on the theory that "our" nation is superior to all other nations, and that, in the long run, it is capable of defeating (injuring) them. The practice of such ideas render an effective organization of society virtually impossible, and it renders social catastrophe almost inevitable. Bankruptcy breeds bankruptcy. Impoverishment is a contagious economic plague. Injury leads to bitterness, hatred and further injury. These logical fruits of competition once admitted into the economic body, threaten its very life. The tenets upon which capitalism is founded have already been abandoned in part by their sponsors as unworkable. But at best they represent a standard of social morality that is essentially destructive of social well-being. The human race has no guarantee of the success of any experiment, and recent experiences with the war, and with the present post-war plight of Europe suggest that the capitalist experiment will fail disastrously unless some extraordinarily successful efforts are made to put things to rights. Society experiments, trying first one means of advancement and then another. A certain number of these new ventures, which prove to be of social advantage, are adopted and incorporated into the social structure. The vast majority are rejected as inadequate to meet the social need. Capitalism is apparently in this latter class. 3. _The Cost of Experience_ Experiment is the necessary road to new experience, and the cost of experiment is written in the immense wastes that it involves. Experience gained through experiment is sometimes very costly. It is never cheap. Frequently these costs, measured in terms of misery, are so great as to overbalance the advantages gained through the experiment. If, therefore, there were another way to gain knowledge except through the processes of experiment, it would result in an immense saving for mankind. 4. _Education_