I.; Hearn, _The Aryan Household_, ch. xix.; Westermarck, _The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas_, Vol. I., pp. 120-185, and parts of ch.
xx.; Sutherland, _Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct_, chs. xx. and xxi.; Pollock and Maitland, _History of of English Law_, Vol. II., pp.
447-460 and ch. ix.; Pollock, _Oxford Lectures_ (The King's Peace); Cherry, _Criminal Law in Ancient Communities_; Maine, _Ancient Law_.
References to anthropological literature, dealing with savage and barbarian customs, will be found especially in Westermarck and Hobhouse.
[207] For facts regarding the importance and nature of these conceptions, see Westermarck, _op. cit._, pp. 52-72; Robertson Smith, _The Religion of the Semites_, pp. 427-435 and 139-149; Jevons, _Introduction to the History of Religion_; Hobhouse, _op. cit._, Vol.
II., chs. i. and ii.; and in general facts bearing on the relations between taboos, holiness, and uncleanness; ablutions, purifications by fire, transference by scapegoats; also the evil power of curses, and the early conceptions of doom and fate. For a suggestive interpretation of the underlying facts, see Santayana, _The Life of Reason_, Vol. III., chs. iii. and iv.
[208] See Plato, _Laws_, IX., 873. Compare Holmes, _Common Law_. In mediæval and early modern Europe, offending objects were "deodand," that is, devoted to God. They were to be appropriated by the proper civil or ecclesiastical authority, and used for charity. In theory, this lasted in England up to 1846. See Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, Vol. I., pp.
286-287; and Pollock and Maitland, _op. cit._, II., pp. 471-472.
[210] The very words cause and to blame are closely connected in their origin. Cf. the Greek [Greek: aitia].
history of the idea of accident in English law with reference to homicide, see also pp. 477-483. Also Stephen, _History of the Criminal Law in England_, Vol. III., pp. 316-376.
[212] Pollock and Maitland, II., p. 473; see Westermarck, pp. 240-247.
[213] The slowness and indirectness of change throw light upon the supposed distinction of justice and mercy (see _ante_, p. 415). When the practical injustice of regarding accidental homicide or killing in self-defense as murder began to be felt, the theory was still that the man in justice was guilty, but that he was to be recommended to the crown for mercy or pardon. This was a mean term in the evolution of our present notion of justice.
[214] For some of the main historic facts on intellectual disability, see Westermarck, pp. 264-277.
[215] Popular judgment, we may say, tends to be as grossly utilitarian in its practice as it is grossly intuitional in its theoretical standpoint. In assuming the possibility of an almost infallible, offhand, pat perception of right and wrong, it commits itself practically to judging in an offhand, analyzed way, on the basis of the evils which overtly result.
[216] See Pollock and Maitland, Vol. II., p. 561, who quote from Ihering: "Formulation is the sworn enemy of arbitrariness, the twin-sister of liberty"; and who add: "As time goes on there is always a larger room for discretion in the law of procedure: but discretionary powers can only be safely entrusted to judges whose impartiality is above suspicion and whose every act is exposed to public and professional criticism."
[217] A lawyer, asked if the poor were not at a disadvantage in the legal maintenance of their rights, replied: "_Not any more than they are in the other relations of life._" [218] The devices of "equity" as distinct from strict legality are of course in part intended to secure this result.
[219] Robinson and Beard, _Development of Modern Europe_, Vol. II., p.
207.
[220] "Man the Reformer."
[221] The term "the King's Peace," as the equivalent in England for the peace and order of the commonwealth, goes back to a time when literally it meant a private possession. Pollock says that the desire to collect larger revenues was the chief motive for pushing the royal jurisdiction against lesser local authorities. Essay on the King's Peace in _Oxford Essays_.
[222] Says President Hadley: "The fundamental division of powers in the Constitution of the United States is between voters on the one hand, and property-owners on the other. The forces of democracy on one side, divided between the executive and the legislature, are set over against the forces of property on the other side, with the judiciary as arbiter between them...The voter could elect what officers he pleased, so long as these officers did not try to do certain duties confided by the Constitution to the property-holders. Democracy was complete as far as it went, but constitutionally it was bound to stop short of _social_ democracy."
CHAPTER XXII THE ETHICS OF THE ECONOMIC LIFE In considering the ethics of the economic life and of property, so far as this latter topic has not received treatment elsewhere, we give (1) a general analysis of the ethical questions involved, (2) a more specific account of the problems raised by the present tendencies of industry, business, and property; we follow these analyses with (3) a statement of principles, and (4) a discussion of unsettled problems.
§ 1. GENERAL ANALYSIS Both the economic process and property have three distinct ethical aspects corresponding respectively to the ethical standpoint of happiness, character, and social justice. (1) The economic process supplies men with goods for their bodily wants and with many of the necessary means for satisfying intellectual, æsthetic, and social needs; property represents permanence and security in these same values. (2) Through the difficulties it presents, the work it involves, and the incitements it offers, the economic process has a powerful influence in evoking skill, foresight, and scientific control of nature, in forming character, and stimulating ambition to excel. Property means power, control, and the conditions for larger freedom. (3) The economic process has an important social function. Through division of labor, coöperation, and exchange of goods and services, it affords one of the fundamental expressions of the organic nature of society in which members are reciprocally ends to each other. Property, likewise, is not only a possessing, but a "right," and thus, like all rights, involves the questions why and how far society should support the individual in his interests and claims. Let us examine each of these aspects further.
=1. The Economic in Relation to Happiness.=--Subject to the important qualifications to be made below under this and the succeeding sections, we note first that the supply of needs and wants by industry and commerce is ethically a good. A constant increase in production and consumption is at least a possible factor in a fuller life. Wealth is a possible condition of weal, even if it is not to be gratuitously identified with it. Rome is frequently cited as an example of the evil effects of material wealth. But it was not wealth _per se_, but wealth (a) gained by conquest, and exploitation, rather than by industry; (b) controlled by a minority; and (c) used in largesses or in crude spectacles--rather than democratically distributed and used to minister to higher wants. The present average income in the United States is about two hundred dollars a year per capita, too small a sum to permit comfortable living, sufficient education for children, and the satisfaction which even a very moderate taste may seek. From this point of view we may then ask of any industrial process or business method whether it is an economical and efficient method of production, and whether it naturally tends to stimulate increased production. To do this is--so far as it goes--ethically as well as economically desirable.
If wealth is a good, it might seem that property must be judged by the same standard, since it represents security in the satisfactions which wealth affords. But there is an important distinction. Wealth means enjoyment of goods and satisfaction of wants. Property means the title to the exclusive use or possession of goods. Hence the increase of property may involve increasing exclusion of part of the community from wealth, although the owners of the property may be increasing their own enjoyments. For, as pointed out very forcibly by Hadley in the first chapter of his _Economics_, the public wealth of a community is by no means equal to the sum of its private property. If all parks were divided up into private estates, all schoolhouses controlled by private owners, all water supplies and highways given into private control, the sum of private property might be very much increased; but the public wealth would be decreased. Property is one of the means of dealing with public wealth. It is important to bear in mind, however, that it is only one means. Wealth may be (1) privately owned and privately used; (2) privately owned and publicly or commonly used; (3) publicly owned, but privately used; (4) publicly owned and publicly or commonly used.
Illustrations of these four methods are, for the first, among practically all peoples, clothing and tools; of the second, a private estate opened to public use--as a park; of the third, public lands or franchises leased to individuals; of the fourth, public highways, parks, navigable rivers, public libraries. Whether property in any given case is a means to happiness will depend, then, largely upon whether it operates chiefly to increase wealth or to diminish it. The view has not been infrequent that the wealth of the community is the sum of its private property. From this it is but a step to believe "that the acquisition of property is the production of wealth, and that he best serves the common good who, other things equal, diverts the larger share of the aggregate wealth to his own possession."[223] The ethical questions as to the relation of property to happiness involve accordingly the problem of justice and can be more conveniently considered under that head.
=2. Relation to Character.=--Even in its aspect of satisfying human wants, quantity of production is not the only consideration. As was pointed out in the chapters on Happiness, the satisfaction of any and every want is not necessarily a moral good. It depends upon the nature of the wants; and as the nature of the wants reflects the nature of the man who wants, the moral value of the economic process and of the wealth it provides must depend upon the relation of goods to persons. As economists we estimate values in terms of external goods or commodities; as ethical students we estimate values in terms of a certain quality of life. We must ask first how the satisfaction of wants affects the consumers.
=Moral Cost of Production.=--Consider next the producers. It is desirable to have cheap goods, but the price of goods or service is not measurable solely in terms of other commodities or service; the price of an article is also, as Thoreau has said, what it costs in terms of human life. There is cheap production which by this standard is dear. The introduction of machinery for spinning and weaving cotton cheapened cotton cloth, but the child labor which was supposedly necessary as a factor in cheap production, involving disease, physical stunting, ignorance, and frequently premature exhaustion or death, made the product too expensive to be tolerated. At least, it was at last recognized as too expensive in England; apparently the calculation has to be made over again in every community where a new system of child labor is introduced. What is true of child labor is true of many other forms of modern industry--the price in human life makes the product dear. The minute subdivision of certain parts of industry with the consequent monotony and mechanical quality of the labor, the accidents and diseases due to certain occupations, the devices to cheapen goods by ingredients which injure the health of the consumer, the employment of women under unsanitary conditions and for excessive hours with consequent risk to the health of themselves and their offspring--all these are part of the moral price of the present processes of industry and commerce.
Moreover, the relation of production to physical welfare is only one aspect of its effects upon life and character. We may properly ask of any process or system whether it quickens intelligence or deadens it, whether it necessitates the degradation of work to drudgery, and whether it promotes freedom or hampers it. To answer this last question we shall have to distinguish formal from real freedom. It might be that a system favorable to the utmost formal freedom--freedom of contract--would result in the most entire absence of that real freedom which implies real alternatives. If the only alternative is, this or starve, the real freedom is limited.
=Property and Character.=--Viewed on its positive side, property means an expansion of power and freedom. To seize, master, and possess is an instinct inbred by the biological process. It is necessary for life; it is a form of the _Wille zum Leben_ or _Wille zur Macht_ which need not be despised. But in organized society possession is no longer mere animal instinct; through expression in a social medium and by a social person it becomes a _right_ of property. This is a far higher capacity; like all rights it involves the assertion of personality and of a rational claim upon fellow members of society for their recognition and backing. Fichte's doctrine, that property is essential to the effective exercise of freedom, is a strong statement of its moral importance to the individual.
Over against these positive values of property are certain evils which moralists have always recognized, evils both to the property owner and to society. Avarice, covetousness, hardness toward others, seem to be the natural effects of the enormous possibilities of power offered by property, joined with its exclusive character. The prophets of Israel denounced the rich, and Jesus's image of the difficulty found by the rich man in entering the kingdom of God--a moral society--has met general acceptance. Plato's portrayal of the State in which the wealthy rule sketches the perversion and disobedience of laws, the jealousies and class hatred, the evasion of taxes for public defense, and gives the moral outcome:-- "And henceforth they press forward on the path of money-getting, losing their esteem for virtue as the esteem for wealth grows upon them. For can you deny that there is such a gulf between wealth and virtue, that when weighed as it were in the two scales of a balance one of the two always falls, as the other rises?"[224] Even apart from questions of just distribution, the moral question arises as to whether an unlimited power should be given to individuals in this form, and whether there should be unlimited right of inheritance. But all these tend to pass over at once into questions of justice.
=3. Social Aspects.=--The various relations of man to man, political, friendly, kindred, are developed forms of the interdependence implicit in the early group life. A group of units, each independent of the others, would represent mass only, but such a group as is made up of men, women, and children, sustaining all the relations found in present human life, represents something vastly more than a mass of individuals.
Every life draws from the rest. Man without friendship, love, pity, sympathy, communication, coöperation, justice, rights, or duties, would be deprived of nearly all that gives life its value.
The necessary help from others is obtained in various ways. Parental, filial, and other kinship ties, friendship and pity, give rise to certain services, but they are necessarily limited in their sphere and exact in return a special attitude that would be intolerable if made universal. The modern man does not want to be cousin to every one, to give every one his personal friendship, to be in a perpetual attitude of receiving favors, or of asking and not receiving. Formerly the way of getting service from men outside these means was by slavery. The economic relation provides for the mutual exchange of goods and services on a basis of self-respect and equality. Through its system of contracts it provides for future as well as present service. It enables each to obtain the services of all the rest, and in turn to contribute without incurring any other claims or relations. Nor does it at all diminish the moral value of these mutual exchanges of goods and services that they may be paid for. It used to be the theory that in every bargain one party gained and the other lost. It is now recognized that a normal transaction benefits both parties. The "cash payment basis," which was at first denounced as substituting a mechanical nexus for the old personal tie, is in reality a means for establishing a greater independence instead of the older personal relation of "master" and "servant." It enabled a man, as Toynbee puts it, to sell his labor like any other commodity without selling himself.
But while the economic process has these moral possibilities, the morality of any given system or practice will depend on how far these are actually realized.
First of all, we may fairly ask of a process, Does it give to each member the kind of service needed by him? In economic terms, Does it produce the kinds of goods which society needs and desires? A method which provides for this successfully will in so far be providing against scarcity of some goods and oversupply of others, and thus against one of the sources of crises, irregularity of work and wages, and ultimately against suffering and want.
Secondly, if the process is an expression of the mutual dependence and service of members who as persons all have, as Kant puts it, intrinsic worth, and who in our political society are recognized as equal, we may fairly ask how it distributes the results of services rendered. Does the process tend to a broad and general distribution of goods in return for services rendered, or to make "the rich richer and the poor poorer?"
Or, from another point of view, we might ask, Does the process tend to reward members on a moral or equitable basis, or upon a basis which is non-moral if not immoral or unjust.
Thirdly, the problem of _conflicting services_ presents itself under several forms. There is, first, the ever-present conflict between producer and consumer. Higher wages and shorter hours are good for the carpenter or the weaver, until he pays his rent or buys clothes, when he is interested in cheaper goods. What principle can be employed to adjust such a question? Again, service to the consumer may lead a producer to a price-list implying a minimum of profits. One producer can afford this because of his larger business, but it will drive his competitor from the field. Shall he agree to a higher price at which all can do business, or insist on the lower which benefits the consumer and also himself? The labor union is a constant embodiment of the problem of conflicting services. How far shall it serve a limited group, the union, at the expense of other workers in the same trade--non-unionists? Does it make a difference whether the union is open to all, or whether the dues are fixed so high as to limit the membership? Shall the apprentices be limited to keep up the wage by limiting the supply? If so, is this fair to the boys or unskilled laborers who would like to enter? And granting that it is a hardship to these, is it harder or is it kinder to them than it would be to leave the issue to the natural weeding out or starving-out procedure of natural selection in case too many enter the trade? Shall the hours be reduced and wages raised as high as possible, or is there a "fair" standard--fair to both consumer and laborer? How far may the union combine with the capitalist to raise prices to the consumer?
=Private Property and Social Welfare.=--The social value of property is obviously indirect, just as in law, private rights are regarded as indirectly based on social welfare. It is society's aim to promote the worth of its members and to favor the development of their personal dignity and freedom. Property may, therefore, claim social value in so far as it serves these ends, unless it interferes with other social values. The effect of private property has seemed to some disastrous to community of interest and feeling. Plato, for example, in his ideal state would permit his guardians no private property. There would, then, be no quarrels over "meum" and "tuum," no suits or divisions, no petty meanness or anxieties, no plundering of fellow-citizens, no flattery of rich by poor. The mediæval church carried out his theory. Even modern society preserves a certain trace of its spirit. For the classes that Plato called guardians--soldiers, judges, clergy, teachers--have virtually no property, although they are given support by society. It would probably be generally agreed that it is better for the public that these classes should not have large possessions. But it is obvious that private property is not the sole cause of division between individuals and classes. Where there is a deep-going unity of purpose and feeling, as in the early Christian community, or in various other companies that have attempted to practice communism, common ownership of wealth may be morally valuable as well as practically possible. But without such unity, mere abolition of property is likely to mean more bitter divisions, because there is no available method for giving to each the independence which is necessary to avoid friction and promote happiness.
Granting, however, the general position that some parts of wealth should be privately owned, we must recognize that a great number of moral problems remain as to the precise conditions under which society will find it wise to entrust the control of wealth to private ownership. For it must be clearly kept in mind that there is no absolute right of private property. Every right, legal or moral, derives from the social whole, which in turn, if it is a moral whole, must respect the individuality of each of its members. On this basis moral problems, such as the following, must be considered. What kind of public wealth should be given into absolute control of private individuals or impersonal corporations? Does the institution in its present form promote the good of those who have no property as well as of those who have it, or only of those who own? Would the welfare of society as a whole be promoted by giving a larger portion of public wealth into private control, or by retaining a larger proportion than at present under public ownership?
Should there be any limit to the amount of land or other property which an individual or corporation may own? Are there any cases in which private ownership operates rather to exclude the mass of society from the benefits of civilization than to give them a share of those benefits? Should a man be allowed to transmit all his property to his heirs, or should it be in part reserved by society?
The preceding analysis has aimed to state some of the problems which belong necessarily to the economic life. At the present time, however, the moral issues assume a new and puzzling aspect because of the changes in economic conditions. It will be necessary to consider briefly these changed conditions.
§ 2. THE PROBLEMS SET BY THE NEW ECONOMIC ORDER =The Collective and Impersonal Organizations.=--Two changes have come over a large part of the economic and industrial field. The first is the change from an individual to a collective basis. The second, which is in part a consequence of the first, is a change from personal to impersonal or corporate relations. Corporations are of course composed of persons, but when organized for economic purposes they tend to become simply economic purpose incorporate, abstracted from all other human qualities. Although legally they may be subjects of rights and duties, they have but one motive, and are thus so abstract as to be morally impersonal. They tend to become machines for carrying on business, and, as such, may be as powerful--and as incapable of moral considerations--as other machines.
=Ethical Readjustment.=--Both these changes require readjustment of our ethical conceptions. Our conceptions of honesty and justice, of rights and duties, got their present shaping largely in an industrial and business order when mine and thine could be easily distinguished; when it was easy to tell how much a man produced; when the producer sold to his neighbors, and an employer had also the relations of neighbor to his workmen; when responsibility could be personally located, and conversely a man could control the business he owned or make individual contracts; when each man had his own means of lighting, heating, water supply, and frequently of transportation, giving no opportunity or necessity for public service corporations. Such conceptions are inadequate for the present order. The old honesty could assume that goods belonged to their makers, and then consider exchanges and contracts. The new honesty will first have to face a prior question, _Who owns what is collectively produced_, and are the present "rules of the game" distributing the returns honestly and fairly? The old justice in the economic field consisted chiefly in securing to each individual his rights in property or contracts. The new justice must consider how it can secure for each individual a standard of living, and such a share in the values of civilization as shall make possible a full moral life. The old virtue allowed a man to act more as an individual; the new virtue requires him to act in concerted effort if he is to achieve results. Individualist theories cannot interpret collectivist facts.
The changes in the economic and industrial processes by which not only the associated powers of present human knowledge, skill, and endurance, but also the combined results of past and future skill and industry are massed and wielded, depend on several concurrent factors. We shall notice the social agency, the technique of industry, the technique of business, the means of fixing value, and the nature of property.
§ 3. THE AGENCIES FOR CARRYING ON COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY =Early Agencies.=--The early agencies for carrying on trade and industry were not organized purely for economic purposes. The kindred or family group engaged in certain industries, but this was only part of its purpose. So in the various territorial groups. The Athenian city-state owned the mines; the German village had its forest, meadow, and water as a common possession; and the "common" survived long in English and American custom, though the cattle pastured on it might be individually owned. In the United States certain land was reserved for school purposes, and if retained would now in some cases be yielding an almost incredible amount for public use; but it has usually been sold to private individuals. The national government still retains certain land for forest reserve, but until the recent movement toward municipal ownership, the civic community had almost ceased to be an economic factor in England and America, except in the field of roads, canals, and the postoffice. In both family and territorial or community control of industry, we have the economic function exercised as only one among several others. The economic helped to strengthen the other bonds of unity. On the other hand, the economic motive could not disentangle itself and stand out in all its naked force. Within either family or civic group the effects of the acquisitive instincts were limited by the fact that individuals in their industrial relations were also kin or neighbors.
=The Business Enterprise.=--In the business enterprise--partnership, company, corporation, "trust,"--on the other hand, men are organized solely for economic purposes. No other interests or ends are regarded.
Corporations organized for this purpose "have no souls," because they consist of merely the abstract economic interests. While in domestic and territorial agencies the acquisitive forces were to some degree beneficially controlled, they were also injuriously hampered. With the rise of business enterprise as a distinct sphere of human action, the way was opened for a new force to manifest itself. This brought with it both advantages and disadvantages for the moral and social life as a whole. On the one hand, it increased tremendously the possibilities of economic and industrial efficiency. The size of the enterprise could be as large or as small as was needed for the most efficient production, and was not, as in family or community agency, sometimes too small and sometimes too large. The enterprise could group men according to their capacity for a particular task, and not, as in the other forms, be compelled to take a group already constituted by other than economic or industrial causes. Further, it could without difficulty dispense with the aged or those otherwise unsuited to its purposes. When, moreover, as is coming to be increasingly the case, great corporations, each controlling scores or even hundreds of millions of capital, are linked together in common control, we have a tremendous force which may be wielded as a unit. It is easy to assume--indeed it is difficult for managers not to assume--that the interests of such colossal organizations are of supreme importance, and that diplomacy, tariffs, legislation, and courts should be subordinate. The moral dangers attaching to such corporations formed solely for economic purposes are obvious, and have found frequent illustration in their actual workings.
Knowing few or none of the restraints which control an individual, the corporation has treated competitors, employees, and the public in a purely economic fashion. This insures certain limited species of honesty, but does not include motives of private sympathy or public duty.
=The Labor Union.=--Correlative to these corporate combinations of capital are Labor Unions of various types. They are usually when first organized more complex in motive, including social and educational ends, and are more emotional, or even passionate in conduct. With age they tend to become more purely economic. In the United States they have sought to secure better wages, to provide benefits or insurance in case of sickness and death, and to gain better conditions in respect of hours, of child-labor, and of protection against dangerous machinery, explosions, and occupational diseases. In Great Britain they have also been successful in applying the coöperative plan to the purchase of goods for consumption. The organizations have been most successful among the skilled trades. For so far as the aim is collective bargaining, it is evident that the union will be effective in proportion as it controls the whole supply of labor in the given trade. In the unskilled forms of labor, especially with a constant flow of immigration, it is difficult, if not impossible, to maintain organizations comparable with the organizations of capital. Hence in conflicts it is natural to expect the moral situations which frequently occur when grossly unequal combatants are opposed. The stronger has contempt for the weaker and refuses to "recognize" his existence. The weaker, rendered desperate by the hopelessness of his case when he contends under rules and with weapons prescribed by the stronger, refuses to abide by the rules and resorts to violence--only to find that by this he has set himself in opposition to all the forces of organized society.
=Group Morality Again.=--The striking feature of the new conditions is that it means a _reversion to group morality_. That is, it has meant this so far. Society is struggling to reassert a general moral standard, but it has not yet found a standard, and has wavered between a rigid insistence upon outgrown laws on the one hand, and a more or less emotional and unreasoned sympathy with new demands, upon the other.[225] Group morality meant impersonal, collective life. It meant loyalty to one's own group, little regard for others, lack of responsibility, and lack of a completely social standard. There is, of course, one important difference. The present collective, impersonal agencies are not so naïve as the old kinship group. They can be used as effective agencies to secure definite ends, while the manipulators secure all the advantages of the old solidarity and irresponsibility.
=Members and Management.=--The corporation in its idea is democratic.
For it provides for the union of a number of owners, some of them it may be small owners, under an elected management. It would seem to be an admirable device for maintaining concentration of power with distribution of ownership. But the very size of modern enterprises and unions prevents direct control by stockholders or members. They may dislike a given policy, but they are individually helpless. If they attempt to control, it is almost impossible, except in an extraordinary crisis, to unite a majority for common action.[226] The directors can carry on a policy and at the same time claim to be only agents of the stockholders, and therefore not ultimately responsible. What influence can the small shareholders in a railway company, or a great industrial corporation, or labor union, have? They unite with ease upon one point only: they want dividends or results. When an illegal policy is to be pursued, or a legislature or jury is to be bribed, or a non-union man is to be "dealt with," the head officials likewise seek only "results."
They turn over the responsibility to the operating or "legal" department, or to the "educational committee," and know nothing further.
These departments are "agents" for the stockholders or union, and therefore, feel quite at ease. The stockholders are sure they never authorized anything wrong. Some corporations are managed for the interest of a large number of owners; some, on the other hand, by ingenious contracts with side corporations formed from an inner circle, are managed for the benefit of this inner circle. The tendency, moreover, in the great corporations is toward a situation in which boards of directors of the great railroad, banking, insurance, and industrial concerns are made up of the same limited group of men. This aggregate property may then be wielded as absolutely as though owned by these individuals. If it is used to carry a political election the directors, according to New York courts, are not culpable.
=Employer and Employed.=--The same impersonal relation often prevails between employer and employed. The ultimate employer is the stockholder, but he delegates power to the director, and he to the president, and he to the foreman. Each is expected to get results. The employed may complain about conditions to the president, and be told that he cannot