by James Cowan
CHAPTER XXVIII.
BUSINESS ETHICS.
The next day the doctor and I took the first opportunity to tellThorwald that we were anxious to have him proceed with his narrative.
"Yes," he said, "I shall be glad to do so, for I had not reached theimportant part when our sitting broke up yesterday.
"I was describing to you a remarkable era in our career, and one of youmentioned the fact that the present condition of your race correspondedin some particulars with that age on Mars. If you shall discover furtherpoints of likeness as I continue, it will add a peculiar interest to mystory.
"There is a difference of opinion among our historians in regard tothose times. Some believe that the whole world was corrupt, that it wasan age of material development only, and that, if there were any goodimpulses at all, they were so smothered with selfishness as to be of noaccount. But these writers lived long ago, and were themselves more orless under the shadow of that epoch. I strongly hold to the views of thegreat majority of our scholars, who tell us that, while there was toomuch evil of all kinds, there was also much good, and many believers ina final happy issue out of all the troubles of the time.
"In a society so entirely given up to the pursuit of wealth and worldlyadvantage of every sort, those who were trying to hold up the standardof righteousness and to alleviate the lot of their fellow beings shouldbe remembered with gratitude. Among the multitude of inventions weremany that were calculated to relieve the laborer of his severest tasks,to mitigate suffering, to ward off disease, and to lighten the load ofmankind in various ways. Large sums of money were given for hospitals,charitable institutions, and colleges, and for other kinds ofphilanthropic work, while private benevolences were not uncommon. Therewas prosperity, too, of a certain kind, and some people were happy, orthought themselves so. In the records of that as of every period of ourhistory, it is possible to find rays of light if we search for them, andI tell you these things in order that you may get a fair understandingof the situation, for in what follows you will see something of theother side.
"I think I shall not err if I say that the gigantic evil of the times,that from which others sprang, was the inordinate love of money. Evenpolitical power, by which the opportunity was obtained of doing publicservice, was too often sought merely for the better chance one had ofmaking money, as the saying was. In the revolt against aristocraticgovernment, the tendency in our race of going from one extreme to theother was again shown, and universal suffrage was adopted. This wouldhave been wise if intelligence and honesty had also been universal. Butthe result proved it to be an exceedingly bad policy, for it createda large class of voters who held the high privilege of citizenship someanly, and were themselves so venal, that they would even sell theirvotes to the highest bidder. This, supplemented by the immorality ofsome of the intelligent citizens, made politics corrupt and the name ofpolitician too often a by-word.
"In doing business, by which was meant buying and selling andmanufacturing, also financial dealings and commerce, the passionfor money-getting was particularly prominent. An astonishingly smallpercentage of those that went into business, as they said, made asuccess, if we except the large manufacturers, but in spite of thatit was a popular way of earning a livelihood. One thing that made itpopular was the fact that there was always more or less speculationin it. The haste to get rich made men too careless of the rights ofothers."
"Do you mean that all business was conducted dishonestly?" I asked.
"No," answered Thorwald, "not as men looked at it then. There was agreat deal of downright knavery in business, but there was another classwho satisfied their consciences by being as honest as they could. Thethoughtful ones knew the system was wrong but felt themselves utterlyunable to replace it by a better one, and feeling no responsibility forit, they were satisfied to smother their sensibilities and drift along.They had their living to make, and, though they were not making it in anideal way, they did not know that any other kind of work would be moresatisfactory to their uneasy consciences."
"Excuse me, Thorwald," I said; "I am dull. What was there wrong in theirmanner of doing business?"
"Can you see nothing wrong," he answered, "in a system where one man'sfortune was built on the ruins of another's, or perhaps a score ofothers, or where a business was started and increased solely by drawingfrom another one already established?"
"Why," said I, "that is competition, which they no doubt thought betterthan monopoly. I can imagine that they argued that a man's first dutywas to himself and his family, that one had a right to go into anylegitimate business, and that others must take care of themselves. Theevil, if there was any, they probably felt was incident to the nature ofbusiness and could not be helped. I would like to ask how society couldexist with any other business rules."
As I closed it struck me that I had spoken pretty fast and without muchdiscretion, and the impression was not removed as Thorwald answered withdignity:
"I am telling you the state of things on this planet thousands of yearsago, and it is a sufficient answer to your question to say that societyat the present day is not governed on any such principles; still, weseem to exist. It was a favorite saying in those days that 'a man mustlive,' and one that was used as an argument or excuse for questionablepractices. The premise was wrong; it was not necessary to live: deathwould have been far better for the world and for the individual thana dishonorable life. So with society at large; better a change in thesocial structure, caused by an awakened conscience, than a state ofpeace founded on wrong principles. Our history proves that no particularplan of society is necessary to the world and that no order basedon selfishness or injustice can long endure. But do not imagine suchchanges were easy or swift in accomplishment. They came, not byviolence nor by the device of crafty men, but only through the universalbetterment of the race, whereby a state of things that had beenconsidered good enough, and then endured as the best attainable, becameat last positively wrong and was slowly pushed aside by a growing senseof right.
"To return to your first question, as to what there was wrong in theirway of doing business, I want to say with emphasis that the essence ofthe wrong was in an undue regard for self and an almost total disregardfor the interests of others. There were exceptions to the rule, notablyin the direction of charity and philanthropy and in religious work, butI am speaking of the mass of the business community. It was every mansingly against all the rest of the world. No man was his brother'skeeper. If one did not look out for himself, that was the end of it;there was no one else to do it."
"But the system itself made men selfish," I ventured to say.
"To be sure it did," he replied. "But why did they not then abolish thesystem before it had brought upon them its long train of evils? It hadto go at last."
"But," I asked again, "was not competition a good thing for the largenumber of people not directly engaged in business? Did it not keep downthe prices on all kinds of commodities?"
"Certainly not in the main. It increased prices, because it increasedthe cost of everything. But let us suppose a case where it had theeffect you suggest. Could a man with a heart wear a coat, for example,with any pleasure, if he knew that rivalry between the manufacturers hadforced the people who made the garment to accept starvation wages? Andthis was done, not from humanitarian motives, to furnish the poor withcheap clothing, but for the purpose of getting more business and so ofmaking more money."
I could hardly resist the temptation at this point of asking Thorwaldif he had not been reading up on the current history of the earth, but Iknew well enough that was not possible, for we had brought no books withus. And then I did not care to tell Thorwald just yet how near hewas coming to our experience. But I could not endure having the propsknocked from under our social structure without another effort to saveit. So I said:
"But were not the great majority of business men honest, and were notthese instances that you have cited extreme cases?"
"They were the natural results of a bad sy
stem. A great many men wereas honest as their environment would permit, and they tried to convincethemselves that they were not responsible for the environment."
"Were they?" I asked eagerly.
"When they at last discovered that they were, then began a radicalchange. I am not exaggerating the evils of the times. I am merelysetting them forth to show you how our race has improved with itsmaturity. If my purpose required it, I could detail many good things inthe life of that people. One bright point in their character, to which Ijust now referred, I will illustrate. My boy, who is also my studentin drawing, will never be able to make a straight line until he cansee that the line he has already made is not straight. His improvementdepends upon more than a steady hand. So with this people. Deep down intheir being, planted by a divine hand, were the instinct of truthand the principle of growth, and when, in the natural course of theirdevelopment, they came to realize how unworthy they were of their betternature, they set about the work of improvement.
"But they came to that knowledge through many sad experiences. I havenot begun to tell you the number and extent of the evils they endured.
"The desire for money affected all classes. The general prosperity hadbettered the condition of the wage-earners, creating many artificialwants which could not be satisfied without good pay. Hence arose anatural and constant effort to obtain higher wages, while competitionamong the employers operated just as constantly to keep them down, andthe result was a sharp and increasing antagonism between capital andlabor. The general public shared in the blame for this state of thingsby reason of the almost universal demand for cheap goods.
"While the introduction of machinery was a real advance, whose benefitswe are reaping to this day, other conditions had not become adjustedto it at the time of which we are speaking, so that there was often asurplus of workmen, especially in the lower grades of labor. This hada tendency to reduce wages, of course; and the want of employment,improvidence in the use of small wages, intemperance and otherimmoralities, ignorance and misfortune, all combined to keep part of thepeople in poverty. On the other hand, it was a time of great wealth andluxurious living, and these two classes, so far apart in their manner oflife but often so near each other in all their selfish aims, seemed tohave a strong mutual attraction, for they were always found together,crowding upon each other in every large city.
"One of the most difficult things for us of the present day to imagineis, how persons of refinement and sensibility, living in comfort andwithout a care, could take any pleasure in life when they knew thatwithin a stone's throw of their doors were human beings who, very oftenthrough no fault of their own, were so destitute that a crust wouldrelieve their want, or so friendless that a kind word would make themshed tears of joy. Oh! I cannot comprehend it, and yet the record tellsus there were cases of just that nature, where such people, withoutlifting a finger to alleviate the distress, actually laughed and werehappy. Happy! What could they know of happiness? The word must havechanged its meaning wonderfully, if we think of what it signifiesto-day."