{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_29508/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_29508","id":"gutenberg_29508","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29508","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Sociology","Cooperation","Social ethics"],"text":"E-text prepared by the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading\nTeam (http://www.pgdp.net) from digital material generously made available\nby Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries\n(http://www.archive.org/details/toronto)\n\n\n\nNote: Images of the original pages are available through\n      Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See\n      http://www.archive.org/details/ethicsofcopera00tuftuoft\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE ETHICS OF CO\u00d6PERATION\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nBarbara Weinstock Lectures on The Morals of Trade\n\n\nTHE ETHICS OF CO\u00d6PERATION.\nBy JAMES H. TUFTS.\n\nHIGHER EDUCATION AND BUSINESS STANDARDS.\nBy WILLARD EUGENE HOTCHKISS.\n\nCREATING CAPITAL: MONEY-MAKING AS AN AIM IN BUSINESS.\nBy FREDERICK L. LIPMAN.\n\nIS CIVILIZATION A DISEASE?\nBy STANTON COIT.\n\nSOCIAL JUSTICE WITHOUT SOCIALISM.\nBy JOHN BATES CLARK.\n\nTHE CONFLICT BETWEEN PRIVATE MONOPOLY AND GOOD CITIZENSHIP.\nBy JOHN GRAHAM BROOKS.\n\nCOMMERCIALISM AND JOURNALISM.\nBy HAMILTON HOLT.\n\nTHE BUSINESS CAREER IN ITS PUBLIC RELATIONS.\nBy ALBERT SHAW.\n\n      *      *      *      *      *\n\nTHE ETHICS OF CO\u00d6PERATION\n\nby\n\nJAMES H. TUFTS\n\nProfessor of Philosophy in the University of Chicago\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBoston and New York\nHoughton Mifflin Company\nThe Riverside Press Cambridge\n1918\n\nCopyright, 1918, by the Regents of the\nUniversity of California\nAll Rights Reserved\n\nPublished September 1918\n\n\n\n\n\nBARBARA WEINSTOCK\nLECTURES ON THE MORALS OF TRADE\n\n\nThis series will contain essays by representative scholars and men of\naffairs dealing with the various phases of the moral law in its bearing\non business life under the new economic order, first delivered at the\nUniversity of California on the Weinstock foundation.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ETHICS OF CO\u00d6PERATION\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nAccording to Plato's famous myth, two gifts of the gods equipped man\nfor living: the one, arts and inventions to supply him with the means\nof livelihood; the other, reverence and justice to be the ordering\nprinciples of societies and the bonds of friendship and conciliation.\nAgencies for mastery over nature and agencies for co\u00f6peration among men\nremain the two great sources of human power. But after two thousand\nyears, it is possible to note an interesting fact as to their relative\norder of development in civilization. Nearly all the great skills and\ninventions that had been acquired up to the eighteenth century were\nbrought into man's service at a very early date. The use of fire, the\narts of weaver, potter, and metal worker, of sailor, hunter, fisher,\nand sower, early fed man and clothed him. These were carried to higher\nperfection by Egyptian and Greek, by Tyrian and Florentine, but it\nwould be difficult to point to any great new unlocking of material\nresources until the days of the chemist and electrician. Domestic\nanimals and crude water mills were for centuries in man's service, and\nuntil steam was harnessed, no additions were made of new powers.\n\nDuring this long period, however, the progress of human association\nmade great and varied development. The gap between the men of\nSantander's caves, or early Egypt, and the civilization of a century\nago is bridged rather by union of human powers, by the needs and\nstimulating contacts of society, than by conquest in the field of\nnature. It was in military, political, and religious organization that\nthe power of associated effort was first shown. Army, state, and\nhierarchy were its visible representatives. Then, a little over a\ncentury ago, began what we call the industrial revolution, still\nincomplete, which combined new natural forces with new forms of human\nassociation. Steam, electricity, machines, the factory system,\nrailroads: these suggest the natural forces at man's disposal; capital,\ncredit, corporations, labor unions: these suggest the bringing together\nof men and their resources into units for exploiting or controlling the\nnew natural forces. Sometimes resisting the political, military, or\necclesiastical forces which were earlier in the lead, sometimes\nmastering them, sometimes combining with them, economic organization\nhas now taken its place in the world as a fourth great structure, or\nrather as a fourth great agency through which man achieves his greater\ntasks, and in so doing becomes conscious of hitherto unrealized powers.\n\nEarly in this great process of social organization three divergent\ntypes emerged, which still contend for supremacy in the worlds of\naction and of valuation: dominance, competition, and co\u00f6peration. All\nmean a meeting of human forces. They rest respectively on power,\nrivalry, and sympathetic interchange. Each may contribute to human\nwelfare. On the other hand, each may be taken so abstractly as to\nthreaten human values. I hope to point out that the greatest of these\nis co\u00f6peration, and that it is largely the touchstone for the others.\n\nCo\u00f6peration and dominance both mean organization. Dominance implies\ninequality, direction and obedience, superior and subordinate.\nCo\u00f6peration implies some sort of equality, some mutual relation. It\ndoes not exclude difference in ability or in function. It does not\nexclude leadership, for leadership is usually necessary to make\nco\u00f6peration effective. But in dominance the special excellence is kept\nisolated; ideas are transmitted from above downward. In co\u00f6peration\nthere is interchange, currents flowing in both directions, contacts of\nmutual sympathy, rather than of pride-humility, condescension-servility.\nThe purpose of the joint pursuit in organization characterized by\ndominance may be either the exclusive good of the master or the joint\ngood of the whole organized group, but in any case it is a purpose\nformed and kept by those few who know. The group may share in its\nexecution and its benefits, but not in its construction or in the\nestimating and forecasting of its values. The purpose in co\u00f6peration is\njoint. Whether originally suggested by some leader of thought or\naction, or whether a composite of many suggestions in the give and take\nof discussion or in experiences of common need, it is weighed and\nadopted as a common end. It is not the work or possession of leaders\nalone, but embodies in varying degrees the work and active interest of\nall.\n\nCo\u00f6peration and competition at first glance may seem more radically\nopposed. For while dominance and co\u00f6peration both mean union of forces,\ncompetition appears to mean antagonism. _They_ stand for combination;\n_it_ for exclusion of one by another. Yet a deeper look shows that this\nis not true of competition in what we may call its social, as\ncontrasted with its unsocial, aspect. The best illustration of what I\nventure to call social competition is sport. Here is rivalry, and here\nin any given contest one wins, the other loses, or few win and many\nlose. But the great thing in sport is not to win; the great thing is\nthe game, the contest; and the contest is no contest unless the\ncontestants are so nearly equal as to forbid any certainty in advance\nas to which will win. The best sport is found when no one contestant\nwins too often. There is in reality a common purpose--the zest of\ncontest. Players combine and compete to carry out this purpose; and the\nrules are designed so to restrict the competition as to rule out\ncertain kinds of action and preserve friendly relations. The contending\nrivals are in reality uniting to stimulate each other. Without the\nco\u00f6peration there would be no competition, and the competition is so\nconducted as to continue the relation. Competition in the world of\nthought is similarly social. In efforts to reach a solution of a\nscientific problem or to discuss a policy, the spur of rivalry or the\nmatching of wits aids the common purpose of arriving at the truth.\nSimilar competition exists in business. Many a firm owes its success to\nthe competition of its rivals which has forced it to be efficient,\nprogressive. As a manufacturing friend once remarked to me: \"When the\nother man sells cheaper, you generally find he has found out something\nyou don't know.\"\n\nBut we also apply the term \"competition\" to rivalry in which there is\nno common purpose; to contests in which there is no intention to\ncontinue or repeat the match, and in which no rules control. Weeds\ncompete with flowers and crowd them out. The factory competes with the\nhand loom and banishes it. The trust competes with the small firm and\nputs it out of business. The result is monopoly. When plants or\ninventions are thus said to compete for a place, there is frequently no\nroom for both competitors, and no social gain by keeping both in the\nfield. Competition serves here sometimes as a method of selection,\nalthough no one would decide to grow weeds rather than flowers because\nweeds are more efficient. In the case of what are called natural\nmonopolies, there is duplication of effort instead of co\u00f6peration.\nCompetition is here wasteful. But when we have to do, not with a\nspecific product, or with a fixed field such as that of street railways\nor city lighting, but with the open field of invention and service, we\nneed to provide for continuous co\u00f6peration, and competition seems at\nleast one useful agency. To retain this, we frame rules against \"unfair\ncompetition.\" As the rules of sport are designed to place a premium\nupon certain kinds of strength and skill which make a good game, so the\nrules of fair competition are designed to secure efficiency for public\nservice, and to exclude efficiency in choking or fouling. In unfair\ncompetition there is no common purpose of public service or of\nadvancing skill or invention; hence, no co\u00f6peration. The co\u00f6perative\npurpose or result is thus the test of useful, as contrasted with\nwasteful or harmful, competition.\n\nThere is also an abstract conception of co\u00f6peration, which, in its\none-sided emphasis upon equality, excludes any form of leadership, or\ndirection, and in fear of inequality allows no place for competition.\nSelection of rulers by lot in a large and complex group is one\nillustration; jealous suspicion of ability, which becomes a cult of\nincompetence, is another. Refusals to accept inventions which require\nany modification of industry, or to recognize any inequalities of\nservice, are others. But these do not affect the value of the principle\nas we can now define it in preliminary fashion: union tending to secure\ncommon ends, by a method which promotes equality, and with an outcome\nof increased power shared by all.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nWhat are we to understand by the Ethics of Co\u00f6peration? Can we find\nsome external standard of unquestioned value or absolute duty by which\nto measure the three processes of society which we have named,\ndominance, competition, co\u00f6peration? Masters of the past have offered\nmany such, making appeal to the logic of reason or the response of\nsentiment, to the will for mastery or the claim of benevolence. To make\na selection without giving reasons would seem arbitrary; to attempt a\nreasoned discussion would take us quite beyond the bounds appropriate\nto this lecture. But aside from the formulations of philosophers,\nhumanity has been struggling--often rather haltingly and blindly--for\ncertain goods and setting certain sign-posts which, if they do not\npoint to a highway, at least mark certain paths as blind alleys. Such\ngoods I take to be the great words, liberty, power, justice; such signs\nof blind paths I take to be rigidity, passive acceptance of what is.\n\nBut those great words, just because they are so great, are given\nvarious meanings by those who would claim them for their own. Nor is\nthere complete agreement as to just what paths deserve to be posted as\nleading nowhere. Groups characterized by dominance, cut-throat\ncompetition, or co\u00f6peration, tend to work out each its own\ninterpretations of liberty, power, justice; its own code for the\nconduct of its members. Without assuming to decide your choice, I can\nindicate briefly what the main elements in these values and codes are.\n\nThe group of masters and servants will develop what we have learned to\ncall a morality of masters and a morality of slaves. This was\nessentially the code of the feudal system. We have survivals of such a\ngroup morality in our code of the gentleman, which in England still\ndepreciates manual labor, although it has been refined and softened and\nenlarged to include respect for other than military and sportsman\nvirtues. The code of masters exalts liberty--for the ruling class--and\nresents any restraint by inferiors or civilians, or by public opinion\nof any group but its own. It has a justice which takes for its premise\na graded social order, and seeks to put and keep every man in his\nplace. But its supreme value is power, likewise for the few, or for the\nstate as consisting of society organized and directed by the ruling\nclass. Such a group, according to Treitschke, will also need war, in\norder to test and exhibit its power to the utmost in fierce struggle\nwith other powers. It will logically honor war as good.\n\nA group practicing cut-throat competition will simply reverse the\norder: first, struggle to put rivals out of the field; then, monopoly\nwith unlimited power to control the market or possess the soil. It\nappeals to nature's struggle for existence as its standard for human\nlife. It too sets a high value upon liberty in the sense of freedom\nfrom control, but originating as it did in resistance to control by\nprivilege and other aspects of dominance, it has never learned the\ndefects of a liberty which takes no account of ignorance, poverty, and\nill health. It knows the liberty of nature, the liberty of the strong\nand the swift, but not the liberty achieved by the common effort for\nall. It knows justice, but a justice which is likely to be defined as\nsecuring to each his natural liberty, and which therefore means\nnon-interference with the struggle for existence except to prevent\nviolence and fraud. It takes no account as to whether the struggle\nkills few or many, or distributes goods widely or sparingly, or whether\nindeed there is any room at the table which civilization spreads;\nthough it does not begrudge charity if administered under that name.\n\nA co\u00f6perating group has two working principles: first, common purpose\nand common good; second, that men can achieve by common effort what\nthey cannot accomplish singly. The first, reinforced by the actual\ninterchange of ideas and services, tends to favor equality. It implies\nmutual respect, confidence, and good-will. The second favors a\nconstructive and progressive attitude, which will find standards\nneither in nature nor in humanity's past, since it conceives man able\nto change conditions to a considerable extent and thus to realize new\ngoods.\n\nThese principles tend toward a type of liberty different from those\njust mentioned. As contrasted with the liberty of a dominant group,\nco\u00f6peration favors a liberty for all, a liberty of live and let live, a\ntolerance and welcome for variation in type, provided only this is\nwilling to make its contribution to the common weal. Instead of\nimitation or passive acceptance of patterns on the part of the\nmajority, it stimulates active construction. As contrasted with the\nliberty favored in competing groups, co\u00f6peration would emphasize\npositive control over natural forces, over health conditions, over\npoverty and fear. It would make each person share as fully as possible\nin the knowledge and strength due to combined effort, and thus liberate\nhim from many of the limitations which have hitherto hampered him.\n\nSimilarly with justice. Co\u00f6peration's ethics of distribution is not\nrigidly set by the actual interest and rights of the past on the one\nhand, nor by hitherto available resources on the other. Neither natural\nrights nor present ability and present service form a complete measure.\nSince co\u00f6peration evokes new interests and new capacities, it is\nhospitable to new claims and new rights; since it makes new sources of\nsupply available, it has in view the possibility at least of doing\nbetter for all than can an abstract insistence upon old claims. It may\noften avoid the deadlock of a rigid system. It is better to grow two\nblades of grass than to dispute who shall have the larger fraction of\nthe one which has previously been the yield. It is better, not merely\nbecause there is more grass, but also because men's attitude becomes\nforward-looking and constructive, not pugnacious and rigid.\n\nPower is likewise a value in a co\u00f6perating group, but it must be power\nnot merely used for the good of all, but to some extent controlled by\nall and thus actually shared. Only as so controlled and so shared is\npower attended by the responsibility which makes it safe for its\npossessors. Only on this basis does power over other men permit the\nfree choices on their part which are essential to full moral life.\n\nAs regards the actual efficiency of a co\u00f6perating group, it may be\ngranted that its powers are not so rapidly mobilized. In small,\nhomogeneous groups, the loss of time is small; in large groups the\nformation of public opinion and the conversion of this into action is\nstill largely a problem rather than an achievement. New techniques have\nto be developed, and it may be that for certain military tasks the\nmilitary technique will always be more efficient. To the co\u00f6perative\ngroup, however, this test will not be the ultimate ethical test. It\nwill rather consider the possibilities of substituting for war other\nactivities in which co\u00f6peration is superior. And if the advocate of war\ninsists that war as such is the most glorious and desirable type of\nlife, co\u00f6peration may perhaps fail to convert him. But it may hope to\ncreate a new order whose excellence shall be justified of her children.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nA glance at the past r\u00f4les of dominance, competition, and co\u00f6peration\nin the institutions of government, religion, and commerce and industry,\nwill aid us to consider co\u00f6peration in relation to present\ninternational problems.\n\nPrimitive tribal life had elements of each of the three principles we\nhave named. But with discovery by some genius of the power of\norganization for war the principle of dominance won, seemingly at a\nflash, a decisive position. No power of steam or lightning has been so\nspectacular and wide-reaching as the power which Egyptian, Assyrian,\nMacedonian, Roman, and their modern successors introduced and\ncontrolled. Political states owing their rise to military means\nnaturally followed the military pattern. The sharp separation between\nruler or ruling group and subject people, based on conquest, was\nperpetuated in class distinction. Gentry and simple, lord and villein,\nwere indeed combined in exploitation of earth's resources, but\nco\u00f6peration was in the background, mastery in the fore. And when\nempires included peoples of various races and cultural advance the\nseparation between higher and lower became intensified. Yet though\nsubmerged for long periods, the principle of co\u00f6peration has asserted\nitself, step by step and it seldom loses ground. Beginning usually in\nsome group which at first combined to resist dominance, it has made its\nway through such stages as equality before the law, abolition of\nspecial privileges, extension of suffrage, influence of public\nsentiment, interchange of ideas, toward genuine participation by all in\nthe dignity and responsibility of political power. It builds a Panama\nCanal, it maintains a great system of education, and has, we may easily\nbelieve, yet greater tasks in prospect. It may be premature to predict\nits complete displacement of dominance in our own day as a method of\ngovernment, yet who in America doubts its ultimate prevalence?\n\nReligion presents a fascinating mixture of co\u00f6peration with dominance\non the one hand, and exclusiveness on the other. The central fact is\nthe community, which seeks some common end in ritual, or in beneficent\nactivity. But at an early period leaders became invested, or invested\nthemselves, with a sanctity which led to dominance. Not the power of\nforce, but that of mystery and the invisible raised the priest above\nthe level of the many. And, on another side, competition between rival\nnational religions, like that between states, excluded friendly\ncontacts. Jew and Samaritan had no dealings; between the followers of\nBaal and Jehovah there was no peace but by extermination. Yet it was\nreligion which confronted the _Herrenmoral_ with the first reversal of\nvalues, and declared, \"So shall it not be among you. But whosoever will\nbe great among you let him be your minister.\" And it was religion which\ncut across national boundaries in its vision of what Professor Royce so\nhappily calls the Great Community. Protest against dominance resulted,\nhowever, in divisions, and although co\u00f6peration in practical activities\nhas done much to prepare the way for national understanding, the\nhostile forces of the world to-day lack the restraint which might have\ncome from a united moral sentiment and moral will.\n\nIn the economic field the story of dominance, co\u00f6peration, and\ncompetition is more complex than in government and religion. It\nfollowed somewhat different courses in trade and in industry. The\nsimplest way to supply needs with goods is to go and take them; the\nsimplest way to obtain services is to seize them. Dominance in the\nfirst case gives piracy and plunder, when directed against those\nwithout; fines and taxes, when exercised upon those within; in the\nsecond case, it gives slavery or forced levies. But trade, as a\nvoluntary exchange of presents, or as a bargaining for mutual\nadvantage, had likewise its early beginnings. Carried on at first with\ntimidity and distrust, because the parties belonged to different\ngroups, it has developed a high degree of mutual confidence between\nmerchant and customer, banker and client, insurer and insured. By its\nsystem of contracts and fiduciary relations, which bind men of the most\nvarying localities, races, occupations, social classes, and national\nallegiance, it has woven a new net of human relations far more\nintricate and wide-reaching than the natural ties of blood kinship. It\nrests upon mutual responsibility and good faith; it is a constant force\nfor their extension.\n\nThe industrial side of the process has had similar influence toward\nunion. Free craftsmen in the towns found mutual support in guilds, when\nas yet the farm laborer or villein had to get on as best he could\nunaided. The factory system itself has been largely organized from\nabove down. It has very largely assumed that the higher command needs\nno advice or ideas from below. Hours of labor, shop conditions, wages,\nhave largely been fixed by \"orders,\" just as governments once ruled by\ndecrees. But as dominance in government has led men to unite against\nthe new power and then has yielded to the more complete co\u00f6peration of\nparticipation, so in industry the factory system has given rise to the\nlabor movement. As for the prospects of fuller co\u00f6peration, this may be\nsaid already to have displaced the older autocratic system within the\nmanaging group, and the war is giving an increased impetus to extension\nof the process.\n\nExchange of goods and services is indeed a threefold co\u00f6peration: it\nmeets wants which the parties cannot themselves satisfy or cannot well\nsatisfy; it awakens new wants; it calls new inventions and new forces\ninto play. It thus not only satisfies man's existing nature, but\nenlarges his capacity for enjoyment and his active powers. It makes not\nonly for comfort, but for progress.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\n\nIf trade and industry, however, embody so fully the principle of\nco\u00f6peration, how does it come about that they have on the whole had a\nrather low reputation, not only among the class groups founded on\nmilitarism, but among philosophers and moralists? Why do we find the\npresent calamities of war charged to economic causes? Perhaps the\nanswer to these questions will point the path along which better\nco\u00f6peration may be expected.\n\nThere is, from the outset, one defect in the co\u00f6peration between buyer\nand seller, employer and laborer. The co\u00f6peration is largely\nunintended. Each is primarily thinking of his own advantage, rather\nthan that of the other, or of the social whole; he is seeking it in\nterms of money, which as a material object must be in the pocket of one\nparty or of the other, and is not, like friendship or beauty, sharable.\nMutual benefit is the result of exchange--it need not be the motive.\nThis benefit comes about as if it were arranged by an invisible hand,\nsaid Adam Smith. Indeed, it was long held that if one of the bargainers\ngained, the other must lose. And when under modern conditions labor is\nconsidered as a commodity to be bought and sold in the cheapest market\nby an impersonal corporate employer, there is a strong presumption\nagainst the co\u00f6perative attitude on either side.\n\nThe great problem here is, therefore: How can men be brought to seek\nconsciously what now they unintentionally produce? How can the man\nwhose ends are both self-centered and ignoble be changed into the man\nwhose ends are wide and high? Something may doubtless be done by\nshowing that a narrow selfishness is stupid. If we rule out monopoly\nthe best way to gain great success is likely to lie through meeting\nneeds of a great multitude; and to meet these effectively implies\nentering by imagination and sympathy into their situation. The business\nmaxim of \"service,\" the practices of refunding money if goods are\nunsatisfactory, of one price to all, of providing sanitary and even\nattractive factories and homes, and of paying a minimum wage far in\nexcess of the market price, have often proved highly remunerative. Yet,\nI should not place exclusive, and perhaps not chief, reliance on these\nmethods of appeal. They are analogous to the old maxim, honesty is the\nbest policy; and we know too well that while this holds under certain\nconditions,--that is, among intelligent people, or in the long run,--it\nis often possible to acquire great gains by exploiting the weak,\ndeceiving the ignorant, or perpetrating a fraud of such proportions\nthat men forget its dishonesty in admiration at its audacity. In the\nend it is likely to prove that the level of economic life is to be\nraised not by proving that co\u00f6peration will better satisfy selfish and\nignoble interests, but rather by creating new standards for measuring\nsuccess, new interests in social and worthy ends, and by strengthening\nthe appeal of duty where this conflicts with present interests. The one\nmethod stakes all on human nature as it is; the other challenges man's\ncapacity to listen to new appeals and respond to better motives. It is,\nif you please, idealism; but before it is dismissed as worthless,\nconsider what has been achieved in substituting social motives in the\nfield of political action. There was a time when the aim in political\nlife was undisguisedly selfish. The state, in distinction from the\nkinship group or the village community, was organized for power and\nprofit. It was nearly a gigantic piratical enterprise, highly\nprofitable to its managers. The shepherd, says Thrasymachus in Plato's\ndialogue, does not feed his sheep for their benefit, but for his own.\nYet now, what president or minister, legislator or judge, would\nannounce as his aim to acquire the greatest financial profit from his\nposition? Even in autocratically governed countries, it is at least the\nassumption that the good of the state does not mean solely the prestige\nand wealth of the ruler.\n\nA great social and political order has been built up, and we all hold\nthat it must not be exploited for private gain. It has not been created\nor maintained by chance. Nor could it survive if every man sought\nprimarily his own advantage and left the commonwealth to care for\nitself. Nor in a democracy would it be maintained, provided the\ngoverning class alone were disinterested, deprived of private property,\nand given education, as Plato suggested. The only safety is in the\ngeneral and intelligent desire for the public interest and common\nwelfare. At this moment almost unanimous acceptance of responsibility\nfor what we believe to be the public good and the maintenance of\nAmerican ideals--though it brings to each of us sacrifice and to many\nthe full measure of devotion--bears witness to the ability of human\nnature to adopt as its compelling motives a high end which opposes\nprivate advantage.\n\nIs the economic process too desperate a field for larger motives? To me\nit seems less desperate than the field of government in the days of\nautocratic kings. One great need is to substitute a different standard\nof success for the financial gains which have seemed the only test. Our\nschools of commerce are aiming to perform this service, by introducing\nprofessional standards. A physician is measured by his ability to cure\nthe sick, an engineer by the soundness of his bridge and ship; why not\nmeasure a railroad president by his ability to supply coal in winter,\nto run trains on time, and decrease the cost of freight, rather than by\nhis private accumulations? Why not measure a merchant or banker by\nsimilar tests?\n\nMankind has built up a great economic system. Pioneer, adventurer,\ninventor, scientist, laborer, organizer, all have contributed. It is as\nessential to human welfare as the political system, and like that\nsystem it comes to us as an inheritance. I can see no reason why it\nshould be thought unworthy of a statesman or a judge to use the\npolitical structure for his own profit, but perfectly justifiable for a\nman to exploit the economic structure for private gain. This does not\nnecessarily exclude profit as a method of paying for services, and of\nincreasing capital needed for development, but it would seek to adjust\nprofits to services, and treat capital, just as it regards political\npower, as a public trust in need of co\u00f6perative regulation and to be\nused for the general welfare.\n\nBut the war is teaching with dramatic swiftness what it might have\nneeded decades of peace to bring home to us. We _are_ thinking of the\ncommon welfare. High prices may still be a rough guide to show men's\nneeds, but we are learning to raise wheat because others need it--not\nmerely because the price is high. Prices may also be a rough guide to\nconsumption, but we are learning that eating wheat or sugar is not\nmerely a matter of what I can afford. It is a question of whether I\ntake wheat or sugar away from some one else who needs it--the soldier\nin France, the child in Belgium, the family of my less fortunate\nneighbor. The great argument for not interfering with private exchange\nin all such matters has been that if prices should by some authority be\nkept low in time of scarcity, men would consume the supply too rapidly;\nwhereas if prices rise in response to scarcity, men at once begin to\neconomize and so prevent the total exhaustion of the supply. We now\nreflect that if prices of milk rise it does not mean uniform\neconomy--it means cutting off to a large degree the children of the\npoor and leaving relatively untouched the consumption of the\nwell-to-do. Merely raising the _price_ of meat or wheat means taking\nthese articles from the table of one class to leave them upon the table\nof another. War, requiring, as it does, the united strength and purpose\nof the whole people, has found this method antiquated. In Europe\ngovernments have said to their peoples: we _must_ all think of the\ncommon weal; we _must_ all share alike. In this country, the appeal of\nthe food administrator, though largely without force of law, has been\nloyally answered by the great majority. It is doubtless rash to predict\nhow much peace will retain of what war has taught, but who of us will\nagain say so easily, \"My work or leisure, my economy or my luxury, is\nmy own affair, if I can afford it?\" Who can fail to see that common\nwelfare comes not without common intention?\n\nThe second great defect in our economic order, from the point of view\nof co\u00f6peration, has been the inequality of its distribution. This has\nbeen due largely to competition when parties were unequal, not merely\nin their ability, but in their opportunity. And the most serious,\nthough not the most apparent, aspect of this inequality, has not been\nthat some have more comfort or luxuries to enjoy; it is the fact that\nwealth means power. In so far as it can set prices on all that we eat,\nwear, and enjoy, it is controlling the intimate affairs of life more\nthoroughly than any government ever attempted. In so far as it controls\nnatural resources, means of transportation, organization of credit, and\nthe capital necessary for large-scale manufacturing and marketing, it\ncan set prices. The great questions then are, as with political power:\nHow can this great power be co\u00f6peratively used? Is it serving all or a\nfew?\n\nTwo notable doctrines of the courts point ways for ethics. The first is\nthat of property affected with public interest. Applied thus far by the\ncourts to warehouses, transportation, and similar public services, what\nlimits can we set ethically to the doctrine that power of one man over\nhis fellows, whether through his office, or through his property, is\naffected with public interest?\n\nThe police power, which sets the welfare of all above private property\nwhen these conflict, is a second doctrine whose ethical import far\noutruns its legal applications.\n\nYet it is by neither of these that the most significant progress has\nbeen made toward removing that handicap of inequality which is the\nchief injustice of our economic system. It is by our great educational\nsystem, liberal in its provisions, generously supported by all classes,\nunselfishly served, opening to all doors of opportunity which once were\nclosed to the many, the most successful department of our democratic\ninstitutions in helping and gaining confidence of all--a system of\nwhich this University of California is one of the most notable leaders\nand the most useful members--that fair conditions for competition and\nintelligent co\u00f6peration in the economic world are increasingly\npossible.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\n\nWhat bearing has this sketch of the significance and progress of\nco\u00f6peration upon the international questions which now overshadow all\nelse? Certainly the world cannot remain as before: great powers\nstruggling for empire; lesser powers struggling for their separate\nexistence; great areas of backward peoples viewed as subjects for\nexploitation; we ourselves aloof. It must then choose between a future\nworld order based on dominance, which means world empire; a world order\nbased on nationalism joined with the non-social type of competition,\nwhich means, every nation the judge of its own interests, continuance\nof jealousies and from time to time the recurrence of war; and a world\norder based on nationalism plus international co\u00f6peration, \"to\nestablish justice, to provide for common defense, to promote the\ngeneral welfare, and to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves\nand our posterity.\"\n\nIt is not necessary to discuss in this country the principle of\ndominance and world empire. It contradicts our whole philosophy. Safety\nfor dominance lies only in a civilization of discipline from above\ndown, in ruthless repression of all thinking on the part of the subject\nclass or race.\n\nNor can I see any genuine alternative in what some advocate--reliance\nby each nation on its own military strength as the sole effective\nguarantee for its interests. After the military lessons of this war,\nthe concentration of scientific, economic, and even educational\nattention upon military purposes would almost inevitably be vastly in\nexcess of anything previously conceived. What limits can be set to the\narmies of France and Great Britain if these are to protect those\ncountries from a German empire already double its previous extent, and\ntaking steps to control the resources of eastern Europe and the near\nEast? What navy could guarantee German commerce against the combined\nforces of Great Britain and the United States? What limits to the\nfrightfulness yet to be discovered by chemist and bacteriologist? What\nguarantee against the insidious growth of a militarist attitude even in\ndemocratically minded peoples if the constant terror of war exalts\nmilitary preparations to the supreme place? Something has changed the\nGermany of other days which many of us loved even while we shrank from\nits militarist masters. Is it absolutely certain that nothing can\nchange the spirit of democratic peoples? At any rate, America, which\nhas experimented on a larger scale with co\u00f6peration--political,\neconomic, and religious--than any other continent, may well assert\nsteadily and insistently that this is the more hopeful path. It may\nurge this upon distrustful Europe.\n\nThe obstacles to co\u00f6peration are:\n\n1. The survival of the principle of dominance, showing itself in desire\nfor political power and prestige, and in certain conceptions of\nnational honor.\n\n2. The principle of non-social competition, exhibited in part in the\npolitical policy of eliminating weaker peoples, and conspicuously in\nforeign trade when the use of unfair methods relies upon national power\nto back up its exploitation or monopoly.\n\n3. The principle of nationalistic sentiment, itself based on\nco\u00f6peration, on social tradition and common ideals, but bound up so\nclosely with political sovereignty and antagonisms as to become\nexclusive instead of co\u00f6perative in its attitude toward other cultures.\n\nThe principle of dominance deters from co\u00f6peration, not only the people\nthat seeks to dominate, but peoples that fear to be dominated or to\nbecome involved in entangling alliances. Doubtless a policy of\naloofness was long the safe policy for us. We could not trust political\nliberty to an alliance with monarchies, even as with equal right some\nEuropean peoples might distrust the policies of a republic seemingly\ncontrolled by the slavery interest. At the present time one great power\nprofesses itself incredulous of the fairness of any world tribunal;\nsmaller powers fear the commanding influence of the great; new national\ngroups just struggling to expression fear that a league of nations\nwould be based on present status and therefore give them no\nrecognition, or else a measure of recognition conditioned by past\ninjustices rather than by future aspirations and real desert. All these\nfears are justified in so far as the principle of dominance is still\npotent. The only league that can be trusted by peoples willing to live\nand let live, is one that is controlled by a co\u00f6perative spirit. And\nyet who can doubt that this spirit is spreading? Few governments are\nnow organized on the avowed basis that military power, which embodies\nthe spirit of dominance, should be superior to civil control, and even\nwith them the principle of irresponsible rule, despite its\nreinforcement by military success, is likely to yield to the spirit of\nthe age when once the pressure of war is removed which now holds former\nprotesters against militarism solid in its support. For all powers that\nare genuine in their desire for co\u00f6peration there is overwhelming\nreason to try it; for only by the combined strength of those who accept\nthis principle can liberty and justice be maintained against the\naggression of powers capable of concentrating all their resources with\na suddenness and ruthlessness in which dominance is probably superior.\n\nYet co\u00f6peration for protection of liberty and justice is liable to fall\nshort of humanity's hopes unless liberty and justice be themselves\ndefined in a co\u00f6perative sense. The great liberties which man has\ngained, as step by step he has risen from savagery, have not been\nchiefly the assertion of already existing powers or the striking-off of\nfetters forged by his fellows. They have been _additions_ to previous\npowers. Science, art, invention, associated life in all its forms, have\nopened the windows of his dwelling, have given possibilities to his\nchoice, have given the dream and the interpretation which have set him\nfree from his prison. The liberty to which international co\u00f6peration\npoints is not merely self-direction or self-determination, but a larger\nfreedom from fear, a larger freedom from suspicion, a fuller control\nover nature and society, a new set of ideas, which will make men free\nin a far larger degree than ever before.\n\nSimilarly justice needs to be co\u00f6peratively defined. A justice that\nlooks merely to existing status will not give lasting peace. Peoples\nchange in needs as truly as they differ in needs. But no people can be\ntrusted to judge its own needs any more than to judge its own right. A\njustice which adheres rigidly to vested interests, and a justice which\nis based on expanding interests, are likely to be deadlocked unless a\nconstructive spirit is brought to bear. Abstract rights to the soil, to\ntrade, to expansion, must be subordinate to the supreme question: How\ncan peoples live together and help instead of destroy? This can be\napproached only from an international point of view.\n\nThe second obstacle, unsocial competition, is for trade what dominance\nis in politics. It prevents that solution for many of the delicate\nproblems of international life which co\u00f6peration through trade might\notherwise afford. Exchange of goods and services by voluntary trade\naccomplishes what once seemed attainable only by conquest or slavery.\nIf Germany or Japan or Italy needs iron or coal; if England needs\nwheat, or if the United States sugar, it is possible, or should be\npossible, to obtain these without owning the country in which are the\nmines, grain, and sugar cane. The United States needs Canada's\nproducts; it has no desire to own Canada. But in recent years the\nexchange of products has been subjected to a new influence. National\nself-interest has been added to private self-interest. This has\nintensified and called out many of the worst features of antagonism and\ninequality.\n\nFew in this country have realized the extent to which other countries\nhave organized their foreign commerce on national lines. We are now\nbecoming informed as to the carefully worked-out programmes of\ncommercial education, merchant marines, trade agreements, consular\nservice, financial and moral support from the home government, and\nmutual aid among various salesmen of the same nationality living in a\nforeign country. We are preparing to undertake similar enterprises. We\nare reminded that \"eighty per cent of the world's people live in the\ncountries bordering on the Pacific Ocean, and that as a result of the\nrearrangement of trade routes, San Francisco's chance of becoming the\ngreatest distributing port of the Pacific for goods _en route_ to the\nmarkets of the Orient, are now more promising than ever before.\" Can\nthe United States take part in this commerce in such a way as to help,\nnot hinder, international progress in harmony? Not unless we remember\nthat commerce may be as predatory as armies, and that we must provide\ninternational guarantees against the exclusive types of competition\nwhich we have had to control by law in our own domestic affairs. An\nIndian or an African may be deprived of his possessions quite as\neffectively by trade as by violence. We need at least as high standards\nof social welfare as in domestic commerce. I cannot better present the\nsituation than by quoting from a recent article by Mr. William Notz in\nthe \"Journal of Political Economy\" (Feb. 1918):\n\n    During the past twenty-five years competition in the world markets\n    became enormously keen. In the wild scramble for trade the\n    standards of honest business were disregarded more and more by all\n    the various rival nations. In the absence of any special regulation\n    or legislation, it appeared as though a silent understanding\n    prevailed in wide circles that foreign trade was subject to a code\n    of business ethics widely at variance with the rules observed in\n    domestic trade. What was frowned upon as unethical and poor\n    business policy, if not illegal at home, was condoned and winked at\n    or openly espoused when foreign markets formed the basis of\n    operations and foreigners were the competitors. High-minded men of\n    all nations have long observed with concern the growing tendency of\n    modern international trade toward selfish exploitation,\n    concession-hunting, cut-throat competition, and commercialistic\n    practices of the most sordid type. Time and again complaints have\n    been voiced, retaliatory measures threatened, and more than once\n    serious friction has ensued.\n\nMr. Notz brings to our attention various efforts by official and\ncommercial bodies looking toward remedies for such conditions and\ntoward official recognition by all countries of unfair competition as a\npenal offense.\n\nWhat more do we need than fair competition to constitute the\nco\u00f6perative international life which we dreamed yesterday and now must\nconsider, not merely as a dream, but as the only alternative to a\nfuture of horror?\n\nFree trade has been not unnaturally urged as at least one condition.\nTariffs certainly isolate. To say to a country: \"You shall manufacture\nnothing unless you own the raw material; you shall sell nothing unless\nat prices which I fix,\" is likely to provoke the reply: \"Then I must\nacquire lands in which raw materials are found; I must acquire colonies\nwhich will buy my products.\" Trade agreements mean co\u00f6peration for\nthose within, unless they are one-sided and made under duress; in any\ncase they are exclusive of those without. Free trade, the open door,\nseems to offer a better way. But free trade in name is not free trade\nunless the parties are really free--free from ignorance, from pressure\nof want. If one party is weak and the other unscrupulous; if one\ncompetitor has a lower standard of living than the other, freedom of\ntrade will not mean genuine co\u00f6peration. Such co\u00f6peration as means good\nfor all requires either an equality of conditions between traders and\nlaborers of competing nations and of nations which exchange goods, or\nelse an international control to prevent unfair competition,\nexploitation of weaker peoples, and lowering of standards of living.\nMedical science is giving an object lesson which may well have a wide\napplication. It is seeking to combat disease in its centers of\ndiffusion. Instead of attempting to quarantine against the Orient, it\nis aiding the Orient to overcome those conditions which do harm alike\nto Orient and Occident. Plague, anthrax, yellow fever, cannot exist in\none country without harm to all. Nor in the long run can men reach true\nco\u00f6peration so long as China and Africa are a prize for the exploiter\nrather than equals in the market. Not merely in the political sense,\nbut in its larger meanings democracy here is not safe without democracy\nthere. Education, and the lifting of all to a higher level, is the\nultimate goal. And until education, invention, and intercommunication\nhave done their work of elevation, international control must protect\nand regulate.\n\nIn many respects the obstacle to international co\u00f6peration which is\nmost difficult to remove is the strong and still growing sentiment of\nnationality. This is not, like dominance, a waning survival of a cruder\nmethod of social order; it is a genuine type of co\u00f6peration. Rooted as\nit is in a historic past, in community of ideals and traditions, and\nusually of language and art, it wakens the emotional response to a\ndegree once true only of religion. Born of such a social tradition, the\nmodern may be said in truth mentally and spiritually, as well as\nphysically, to be born a Frenchman or a German, a Scotchman or Irishman\nor Englishman. He may be content to merge this inheritance in an empire\nif he can be senior partner, but the struggles of Irish, Poles, Czechs,\nand South Slavs, the Zionist movement, the nationalistic stirrings in\nIndia, with their literary revivals, their fierce self-assertions, seem\nto point away from internationalism rather than toward it. The Balkans,\nin which Serb, Bulgar, Roumanian, and Greek have been developing this\nnational consciousness, have been the despair of peacemakers.\n\nThe strongest point in the nationalist programme is, however, not in\nany wise opposed to co\u00f6peration, but rather to dominance or non-social\ncompetition. The strongest point is the importance of diversity\ncombined with group unity for the fullest enrichment of life and the\nwidest development of human capacity. A world all of one sort would not\nonly be less interesting, but less progressive. We are stimulated by\ndifferent customs, temperaments, arts, and ideals. But all this is the\nstrongest argument for genuine co\u00f6peration, since by this only can\ndiversity be helpful, even as it is only through diversity in its\nmembers that a community can develop fullest life. A world organization\nbased on the principle that any single group is best and therefore\nought to rule, or to displace all others, would be a calamity. A world\norganization which encourages every member to be itself would be a\nblessing.\n\nWhy do nationalism and internationalism clash? Because this national\nspirit has rightly or wrongly been bound up so intimately with\npolitical independence. Tara's harp long hangs mute when Erin is\nconquered. Poland's children must not use a language in which they\nmight learn to plot against their masters. A French-speaking Alsatian\nis suspected of disloyalty. Professor Dewey has recently pointed out\nthat in the United States we have gone far toward separating culture\nfrom the state, and suggests that this may be the path of peace for\nEurope. We allow groups to keep their religion, their language, their\nsong festivals. It may perhaps be claimed that this maintenance of\ndistinct languages and separate cultures is a source of weakness in\nsuch a crisis as we now face. Yet it may well be urged, on the other\nhand, that a policy less liberal would have increased rather than\ndiminished disunion and disloyalty.\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\n\nThe student of human progress is likely to be increasingly impressed\nwith the interaction between ideas and institutions. How far does man\nbuild and shape institutions to give body to his ideas? How far is it\nthe organized life with its social contacts, its give and take, its\nenlargement of its membership to see life _sub specie communitatis_,\nwhich itself brings ideas to birth? Desire may bring the sexes\ntogether, but it is the association and organized relationships of the\nfamily which transform casual to permanent affection and shape our\nconceptions of its values. A herding instinct or a common need of\ndefense or of food supplies may bring together early groups, and will\nto power may begin the state, but it is the living together which\ngenerates laws and wakens the craving for liberty and the struggle for\njustice. Seer and poet doubtless contribute to progress by their\nkindling appeals to the imagination and sympathy; the philosopher may,\nas Plato claimed for him, live as citizen of a perfect state which has\nno earthly being, and shape his life according to its laws; but mankind\nin general has learned law and right, as well as the arts of use and\nbeauty, in the school of life in common.\n\nSo it is likely to be with international co\u00f6peration. Fears and hopes\nnow urge it upon a reluctant, incredulous world. But the\nbeginnings--scientific, legal, commercial, political--timid and\nimperfect though they be, like our own early confederation, will work\nto reshape those who take part. Mutual understanding will increase with\ncommon action. When men work consistently to create new resources\ninstead of treating their world as a fixed system, when they see it as\na fountain, not as a cistern, they will gradually gain a new spirit.\nThe Great Community must create as well as prove the ethics of\nco\u00f6peration.\n\n\n_The Riverside Press_\nCAMBRIDGE \u00b7 MASSACHUSETTS\nU \u00b7 S \u00b7 A","title":"The Ethics of Co\u00f6peration","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":8498}