Frank A. Fetter

“ The destruction of unnecessarily large value to secure a given gratification is not economically sound. The careless use of wealth to secure an inadequate result is likewise justified as "making trade good." The blunder that compels the rebuilding of a wall in a rich man's garden is an occasion for congratulation to those who see in it a happy provision of work for the unemployed. It is easy to forget that the proper use of goods is the final step in production. According as goods are well or poorly used, the production—that is, the real income or gratification they afford—is large or small. ”

“ Consumption must be studied at the beginning, as the basis of exchange value, and again at the end, when the circle of thought has returned to the use man makes of wealth; and it pervades the whole subject of value, for back of every price is the potential utility of the good. Exchange is coextensive with the whole process of associated industry; for wherever there is a price, there is exchange. Subjective value outside a market forms a small, though not negligible, part of the problem for the student of to-day. Production is implied in every exchange, as exchange is in all social production. ”

“ Even if private property works hardship to individuals in many cases, yet it may be justified if, on the whole, it is best for the progress of society. Laws must be judged by their average working, not by exceptional cases. In general, the system of private property must be judged by this test: Does it further the welfare of the nation better than would any alternative plan for the control of economic wealth? The question is not whether it is faultless, for no human institution is so. Nor must it be assumed that the rule of property needs to be uniform in respect to all kinds of wealth. ”

“ The sale of labor involves the obeying of orders during certain hours specified in the contract. Here again the evil is greatest in the lowest grades of work, while the great majority of wage-earners are left a large measure of choice in the time and manner of their work. Where labor is severe and without joy to the worker, it appears to be little better than a form of slavery. Contrast the condition of the section hand, cursed and beaten by a brutal foreman, with that of the wage-earner in the locomotive-cab, self-respecting, self-directing, and trusted with the safety of property and lives. ”

“ When the union tries to force a higher wage than the market will warrant, when it strives not to establish but to defeat competition, the public condemns. It sees, tho not quite clearly, that such action makes an unstable equilibrium of wages which tempts to constant friction and discord with employers and with unorganized laborers. It sees also that if the unions force a wage higher than a fair and open market affords, this is rarely done at the expense of the employer; that in the long run it is at the expense of the purchasing public itself, including the unprivileged workmen. ”

“ Society may be thought of as hiring the services of the efficient business man at the lowest price. Does it wish the services of Cornelius Vanderbilt in organizing a great system of railroads, of Andrew Carnegie, of Pierpont Morgan? What can it get them for? It must appeal not only to their love of money but to their love of power. Large services and large results can be bought only with large rewards. The shrewd enterpriser is not to be paid with abstract social gratitude. He is not to be tricked, as is a Chinese god, with tissue-paper gold. ”

“ Every child should have presented to him the motive to use his powers in useful ways. Moreover, many feel that the great fortunes now accumulating through successive generations in the hands of a few families are a danger to our free society, even if these fortunes should continue to be well administered. There is a widespread feeling that the heredity of great wealth is, like the heredity of political power, out of harmony with the democratic spirit. Democracy wishes to see men and individuals put to the test, not profiting forever by the deeds of their forebears. ”

“ The immorality of luxury rests in most minds on the conviction that it is unjust that any one should have so large an income to use. The question of luxury leads back to the question of distribution: Has the man honestly gained his wealth? If so, he may spend it with good judgment or poor, with good taste or bad, but, so long as he does not injure others in the spending of it, there is much vagueness and confusion in the talk of "justice" or "injustice." Each must in large measure be his own judge of the wisdom of expenditure. Luxury is not always a question of wealth. ”

“ The usual assumption that the worker is able to contract regarding the conditions of labor on terms of equality with the employer is most palpably false in the case of children. The child, subject to the commands of his parents and guardians, is not a free agent. Lazy fathers are tempted to support themselves in idleness on the wages of their young children. Often poverty leads the parents to rob their children of health, of schooling, and of the joys of childhood. The competition of child-labor also depresses the wages of adults, and thus the evil grows. ”

“ This is the faith that if men are left entirely free to do as their interest dictates, the highest and best efficiency for all will follow; it is the belief that the economic interests of all men are in harmony. The most striking evidence in support of this thought is the stimulating effect of self-interest freely working in the field of competition. Each strives to do what will bring him the largest return, and the price others pay measures their estimate of the service. Each seeking his own interest is led to make himself more useful to others. ”

“ And yet, when institutions, beliefs, and industrial processes were changing slowly from one generation to another and men's lives were ruled by tradition, authority, and custom, few problems of social organization forced themselves upon attention, and the immediate struggle for existence absorbed the energies and the interests of men. But our time of rapid change seems to be peculiarly the age of problems. The movement of the world has been more rapid in the last century than ever before—in population, in natural science, in invention, in the changes of political and economic institutions ”

“ Deliberately securing less than the maximum result from wealth is merely a minor degree of the intentional destruction of wealth. The mistaken view is essentially that of the opponents of labor-saving machinery. It may be true, if the interests of a small class of workers or of tradesmen for the moment are looked at; it is false, if the interests of society as a whole be considered. Far more of wisdom lies in the proverb, "A penny saved is two earned." The economic use of wealth as surely adds to wealth (and, ultimately, to the income of society) as any other mode of production. ”

“ Each helps to value the economic services of each. If one pays more for the services of the singer than for those of the cook, it is not because one would rather listen to the singing than to eat when starving, but because by apportioning one's income one can get the singing and the eating too. In the existing circumstances, the singer's services seem to the music lover to be worth paying for, and he backs his opinion with his money. So each is measuring the services of all others, and all are valuing the services of each. It is distribution by valuation, and it is valuation by democracy. ”

“ Under division of labor, with free workmen, industry is ruled by impersonal economic forces that bring the less capable under the direction of the more capable. This work is rudely done, no doubt, but the penalties of bad direction of labor and capital are so great that blundering cannot be permitted. The man who shovels dirt must do it at the right time and place if, in this complex society, it counts for something and gives the effort value. If he cannot choose well for himself, he comes under direction. ”

“ The employers will often, to break a strike, pay to others for a time more than the current rate of wages. The success of the strikers being dependent on their ability to keep the employer from filling their places, their energies are bent upon that end. The losses that strikes cause to workers in stoppage of wages, to employers and investors in destruction of plant and in suspension of profits, and to the public in the interruption of business, aggregate an enormous sum. ”

“ The control of corporations is vested in the hands of a small group of directors who have both the opportunity and the temptation to withhold dividends when they are earned, to pay them with borrowed money if unearned, and in either case to keep the stockholders and the public in ignorance of the real condition and earning power of the business. The stocks can, by this manipulation of dividends, be made a lottery for the legitimate investor, a trap for the unwary, and a source of unrighteous gain by men recreant to their trusts. ”