persons, the next best thing would certainly be to hedge them about so as to make it impossible for them to pursue their own self-interest in any except useful and productive lines.

No visible harmony of human interests. This does not assume that there is any such thing as a natural harmony of human interests. If anything is clear, it is that human interests are frequently in conflict. Unless there is an umpire or a tribunal to decide these questions of conflict, an overdeveloped self-interest will frequently drive men into actual conflict, or lead one to do something in his own interest which would be injurious to others. It is one of the functions of law and government to adjudicate these conflicts, and also to forbid, with suitable penalties, any injurious act. When the laws are intelligently framed and rigidly executed, this leaves the individual no choice. However self-interested he may be, and however indifferent he may be to the interests of others, he must seek his self-interest by useful rather than by injurious acts. When he is thus efficiently controlled, the more intense his self-interest becomes, and the more intense his interest in his family or near friends, the more intensely he will strive to do useful things, not because he wants to be useful, but because he wants the reward of usefulness. To harness this powerful motive of self-interest to the kinds of work which benefit the nation — which increase wealth and prosperity—is like harnessing a great natural force like steam or electricity. In the one case the harness consists of laws and regulations; in the other it consists of mechanical devices.

CHAPTER IV

COMPETITION

The struggle for existence. It is a common error to speak of competition as though it were synonymous with war or with the struggle for existence as it is carried on among brutes. That it is a form of conflict there can be no doubt, nor can it be denied that it is a phase of the all-but-universal struggle for existence. But there are many forms of conflict besides war, and there are many ways of struggling for existence without resorting to the destructive methods of brutes. The forms of conflict, or the methods of struggling for existence, may be classified as follows:

Various forms of conflict. The methods named in the foregoing outline may be explained and illustrated as follows: By destructive methods are meant all those whereby one succeeds by virtue of one's power to kill, to hurt, or to inspire fear of physical injury or pain. War, robbery, dueling, sabotage, and brawling are names for methods of destruction as carried on by human beings; but it must be remembered that animals also kill, rob, inflict injury, and inspire terror. By the deceptive methods are meant all those by which one succeeds by virtue of one's power to deceive, to swindle, or to cheat. Animals practice deceit, though we do not call their forms of deceit by such names as swindling, counterfeiting, adulteration of goods, etc. By the persuasive methods are meant all those methods whereby one succeeds by virtue of one's power to persuade or to convince. One may beat one's rival by being a more persuasive talker, whether one is striving for favors from the sovereign person or from the sovereign people, whether one is striving for the hand of a lady, the decision of a jury, or the trade of a possible customer. This form of conflict would remain even if we could eliminate all other forms. Even under the most complete form of communism there would remain abundant room for the persuasive forms of conflict. By the productive methods are meant all those methods whereby one may beat one's rivals, or gain advantages, by virtue of one's power to produce, to serve, or to confer benefit.

The same persons may resort to more than one of these methods in order to gain an advantage. When two farmers compete in growing crops, they are struggling for existence, or for economic advantage, by a productive method. When they quarrel over a line fence and take their quarrel before a court for adjudication, they are struggling by a persuasive method. When they secretly alter or remove landmarks in order to gain an advantage in their litigation, or when they bribe jurors, they are struggling by a deceptive method. When they fall to

fighting either with fists or with weapons, they are struggling by a destructive method. When they change their methods in the order just described, they are sinking lower and lower in the scale; that is, they are resorting to worse and worse methods of struggling for existence or advantage. When they rival one another in growing corn, there is more corn grown as the result of that rivalry. The country is better fed and everyone is better off, except possibly the one who is beaten, and even he may very likely be better off than he would have been if he had not competed at all. When two farmers quarrel over a line fence and take it into court, no one gains any benefit except the lawyers, and what the lawyers gain the litigants lose. No new land is created by that conflict. No new wealth is produced. The community is no better fed, and the litigants have wasted their time. To change from persuasion to deception, or from deception to physical force, is so clearly to sink to a lower level that it is unnecessary to pursue the topic farther.

Destructive and deceptive methods of brutes. It will be apparent to anyone who will study the diagram that among animals the destructive and deceptive methods are the characteristic forms of struggle. They kill, maim, injure, rob, and deceive one another with no moral or legal restraints. They may sometimes rise to the level of persuasion, as in the courting process, but never to the level of production; that is, no animal ever tries to beat its rival by producing a larger or better product or rendering a greater or better service. Among human beings who have no moral sense, and who are unrestrained by law and justice, the destructive and deceptive methods of struggle will be followed, as well as the persuasive and productive methods; but the destructive and deceptive methods are precisely the things that morals and laws are designed to prevent. In any civilization worthy of the name, and under any government worthy to stand overnight, men are actually restrained by their own moral feelings, by the

respect for the good opinions of their fellows, and by the fear of legal penalties, from attempting to promote their own interests by destruction or deception.

Meaning of crime. To say that men are restrained from doing these things is not the same as to say that they are absolutely prevented. Crime still flourishes, but it must be remembered that what we call crimes for human beings are not crimes for brutes, for the simple reason that brutes have none of those restraints which men throw around themselves. The fact that we call all destructive methods, and the more grossly deceptive methods, crimes, and impose penalties against them, shows that we are trying to raise the struggle for existence to a higher plane than that on which it is waged in the subhuman world. The aim is to prevent destruction and deception, and to compel men to succeed, if they succeed at all, by persuasion or production. No government, however, is so efficient that it can prevent all destruction or deception. "The mills of man grind slowly and they grind exceeding coarse." Besides, there are some more or less refined methods of deception which have not even been declared illegal by legislation. If we can so improve our legislation as to prohibit every form of deception as well as destruction, and if we can so improve our executive and judicial systems as to prevent absolutely the violation of law, we shall have reached the ideal of government control over the struggle for existence. To stop productive competition and compel us all to struggle for our own advantage by the persuasive methods would be a distinct step backward.

Is it wrong to compete? There are a few people who object on principle to all forms of competition, who believe that the whole competitive system is morally wrong. This feeling, however, is probably due to a failure to discriminate, as we have tried to do in the preceding pages, between different kinds of conflict. The horrors of war and other forms of destructive conflict, the petty, skulking meanness which accompanies all