CHAPTER X

THE NATURAL DECAY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

BroaDLy, the machine discipline acts to disin-
tegrate the institutional heritage, of all degrees of
antiquity and authenticity —whether it be the
institutions that embody the principles of natural
liberty or those that comprise the residue of more
archaic principles of conduct still current in civil-
ized life. It thereby cuts away that ground of
law and order on which business enterprise is
founded. The further cultural bearing of this
disintegration of the received order is no doubt
sufficiently serious and far-reaching, but it does not
directly concern the present inquiry. It comes in
question here only in so far as such a deterioration
of the general cultural tissues involves a set-back
to the continued vigor of business enterprise. But
the future of business enterprise is bound up with
the future of civilization, since the cultural scheme
is, after all, a smgle one, comprising many inter-
locking elements, no one of which can be greatly
disturbed without disturbing the working of all
the rest.

In its bearing on the question in hand, the

374

NATURAL DECAY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE 375

’

“social problem” at large presents this singular
situation. The growth of business enterprise rests
on the machine technology as its material founda-
tion. The machine industry is indispensable to it ;
it cannot get along without the machine process.
But the discipline of the machine process cuts away
the spiritual, institutional foundations of business
enterprise; the machine industry is incompatible
with its continued growth ; it cannot, in the long
run, get along with the machine process. In their
struggle against the cultural effects of the machine
process, therefore, business principles cannot win
in the long run; since an effectual mutilation or
inhibition of the machine system would gradually
push business enterprise to the wall; whereas with
a free growth of the machine system business prin-
ciples would presently fall into abeyance.

The institutional basis of business enterprise —
the system of natural rights— appears to be a
peculiarly unstable affair. There is no way of re-
taining it under changing circumstances, and there
is no way of returning to it after circumstances
have changed. It is a hybrid growth, a blend of
personal freedom and equality on the one hand
and of prescriptive rights on the other hand. The
institutions and points of law under the natural-
rights scheme appear to be of an_ essentially
provisional character. There is relatively great
flexibility and possibility of growth and change ;

376 THE THEORY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

natural rights are singularly insecure under any
change of circumstances. The maxim is well
approved that eternal vigilance is the price of
(natural) liberty. When, as now, this system is
endangered by socialistic or anarchistic disaffection
there is no recourse that will carry the institutional
apparatus back to a secure natural-rights basis.
The system of natural liberty was the product of a
peaceful régime of handicraft and petty trade;
but continued peace and industry presently carried
the cultural growth beyond the phase of natural
rights by giving rise to the machine process and
the large business; and these are breaking down
the structure of natural rights by making these
rights nugatory on the one hand and by cutting
away the spiritual foundations of them on the
other hand. Natural rights being a by-product of
peaceful industry, they cannot be reinstated by a
recourse to warlike habits and a coercive govern-
ment, since warlike habits and coercion are alien
to the natural-rights spirit. Nor can they be
reinstated by a recourse to settled peace and
freedom, since an era of settled peace and freedom
would push on the dominance of the machine
process and the large business, which break down
the system of natural liberty.

When the question is cast up as to what will
come of this conflict of institutional forces —
called the Social Problem — it is commonly made

NATURAL DECAY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE 377

a question of remedies: What can be done to save
civilized mankind from the vulgarization and dis-
integration wrought by the machine industry ?

Now, business enterprise and the machine process
are the two prime movers in modern culture; and
the only recourse that holds a promise of being
effective, therefore, is a recourse to the workings
of business traffic. And this is a question, not of
what is conceivably, ideally, idyllically possible for
the business community to do if they will take
thought and act advisedly and concertedly toward
a chosen cultural outcome, but of what is the
probable cultural outcome to be achieved through
business traffic carried on for business ends, not for
cultural ends. It is a question not of what ought
to be done, but of what is to take place.

Persons who are solicitous for the cultural future
commonly turn to speculative advice as to what
ought to be done toward holding fast that which
is good in the cultural heritage, and what ought
further to be done to increase the talent that has
been intrusted to this generation. The practical
remedy offered is commonly some proposal for
palliative measures, some appeal to philanthropic,
esthetic, or religious sentiment, some endeavor
to conjure with the name of one or another of the
epiphenomena of modern culture. Something must
pe done, it is conceived, and this something takes
the shape of charity organizations, clubs and

378 THE THEORY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

societies for social “ purity,” for amusement, educa-
tion, and manual training of the indigent classes,
for colonization of the poor, for popularization of
churches, for clean politics, for cultural missionary
work by social settlements, and the like. These
remedial measures whereby it is proposed to save
or to rehabilitate certain praiseworthy but obso-
lescent habits of life and of thought are, all and
several, beside the point so far as touches the
question in hand. Not that it is hereby intended
to cast a slur on these meritorious endeavors to save
mankind by treating symptoms. The symptoms
treated are no doubt evil, as they are said to be;
or if they are not evil, the merits of that particular
question do not concern the present mquiry. The
endeavors in question are beside the point in that
they do not fall into the shape of a business propo-
sition. They are,on the whole, not so profitable
a line of investment as certain other ventures that
are open to modern enterprise. Hence, if they
traverse the course of business enterprise and of
industrial exigencies, they are nugatory, being in
the same class with the labor of Sisyphus ; whereas
if they coincide in effect with the line along which
business and industrial exigencies move, they are a
work of supererogation, except so far as they may
be conceived to accelerate a change that is already
under way. Nothing can deflect the sweep of
business enterprise, unless it be an outgrowth of

NATURAL DECAY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE 379

this enterprise itself or of the industrial means by
which business enterprise works.

Nothing can serve as a corrective of the cultural
trend given by the machine discipline except what
can be put im the form of a business proposition.
The question of neutralizing the untoward effects
of the machine discipline resolves itself into a
question as to the cultural work and consequences
of business enterprise, and of the cultural value
of business principles in so far as they guide such
human endeavor as lies outside the range of busi-
ness enterprise proper. It is not a question of
what ought to be done, but of what is the course
laid out by business principles; the discretion
rests with the business men, not with the moral-
ists, and the business men’s discretion is bounded
by the exigencies of business enterprise. Even
the business men cannot allow themselves to
play fast and loose with business principles in
response to a call from humanitarian motives.
The question, therefore, remains, on the whole, a
question of what the business men may be expected
to do for cultural growth on the motive of profits.

Something they are doing, as others are, from
motives of benevolence, with a well-advised en-
deavor to maintain the cultural gains of the past
and to make the way of life smoother for man-
kind in the future. But the more secure and
substantial results to be looked for in this direc-

380 THE THEORY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

tion are those that follow incidentally, as_by-
products of business enterprise, because these
are not dependent on the vagaries of personal
preference, tastes, and prejudices, but rest on a
broad institutional basis.

The effects of business enterprise upon the
habits and temper of the people, and so upon
institutional growth, are chiefly of the nature of
sequelae. It has already been noted that the dis-
cipline of business employments is of a conserva-
tive nature, tending to sustain the conventions
that rest on natural-rights dogma, because these
employments train the men engaged in them to
think in terms of natural rights. It is unneces-
sary to return to this topic here, except to notice
that, in its severer, more unmitigated form, this
discipline in pecuniary habits of thought falls on
a gradually lessening proportion of the population.
The absolute number of business men, counting
principals and subordinates, is, of course, not
decreasing. The number of men in _ business
pursuits, in proportion to the population, is also
apparently not decreasing ; but within the business
employments a larger proportion are occupied
with office routine, and so are withdrawn from
the more effectual training given by business man-
agement proper. If such a decrease occurs in any
country, it is almost certainly not to be found in
any other country than America.

NATURAL DECAY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE 881]

This business discipline is somewhat closely
limited both in scope and range. (1) It acts to
conserve, or to rehabilitate, a certain restricted
line of institutional habits of thought, viz. those
preconceptions of natural rights which have to
do with property. What it conserves, therefore,
is the bourgeois virtues of solvency, thrift, and
dissimulation. The nobler and more spectacular
aristocratic virtues, with their correlative institu-
tional furniture, are not in any sensible degree
fortified by the habits of business life. Business
life does not further the growth of manners and
breeding, pride of caste, punctilios of “honor,” or
ever religious fervor. (2) The salutary discipline
of business life touches the bulk of the population,
the working classes, in a progressively less inti-
mate and less exacting manner. It can, therefore,
not serve to correct or even greatly to mitigate
the matter-of-fact bias given these classes by the
discipline of the machine process.

Asa direct disciplinary factor the machine process
holds over the business employments, in that it
touches larger classes of the community and incul-
cates its characteristic habits of thought more unre-
mittingly. And any return to more archaic methods
of industry, such as is sometimes advocated on ar-
tistic grounds, seems hopeless, since business inter-
ests do not countenance a discontinuance of machine
methods. The machine methods that are corrupt-

882 THE THEORY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

ing the hearts and manners of the workmen are
profitable to the business men, and that fact seems
to be decisive on the point. A direct, advised
return to handicraft, or any similar discontinuance
of the machine industry, is out of the question ;
although something in the way of a partial return
to more primitive methods of industry need not be
impracticable as a remote and indirect consequence
of the working of business enterprise.

The indirect or incidental cultural bearing of busi-
ness principles and business practice is wide-reaching
and forceful. Business principles have a peculiar
hold upon the affections of the people as something
intrinsically right and good. They are therefore
drawn on for guidance and conviction even in
concerns that are not conceived to be primarily
business concerns. So, e.g., they have permeated
the educational system, thoroughly and intimately.
Their presence, as an element of common sense,
in the counsels of the “educators” shows itself
in a naive insistence on the “ practical” whenever
the scheme of instruction is under advisement.
“Practical” means useful for private gain. Any
new departure in public instruction, whether in
the public schools or in private endowed establish-
ments, is scrutinized with this test in mind; which
results in a progressive, though not wholly con-
sistent, narrowing of instruction to such. learning

NATURAL DECAY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE 383

as is designed to give a ready application of re-
sults rather than a systematic organization of
knowledge. The primary test is usefulness for
getting an income. The secondary test, practi-
cally applied where latitude is allowed in the
way of “culture” studies, is the aptness of the
instruction in question to fit the learners for
spending income in a decorous manner. Hence
quasi-scholarly accomplishments. Much of the
current controversy as to the inclusion or exclusion
of one thing and another from the current curric-
ulum of secondary and higher schools might be
reduced to terms of one or the other of these two
purposes without doing violence to the arguments
put forth and with a great gain in conciseness and
lucidity.

There is also a large resort to business methods
in the conduct of the schools; with the result that
a system of scholastic accountancy is enforced both
as regards the work of the teachers and the prog-
ress of the pupils; whence follows a mechanical
routine, with mechanical tests of competency in
all directions. This lowers the value of the
instruction for purposes of intellectual initiative
and a reasoned grasp of the subject-matter. This
class of erudition is rather a hindrance than a help
to habits of thinking. It conduces to conviction
rather than to inquiry, and is therefore a con-
servative factor.

384 THE THEORY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

In the endowed schools there is, moreover, an
increasing introduction of business men and business
methods into the personnel and the administrative
work. This is necessarily so since these schools are
competitors for students and endowments. The
policy of these schools necessarily takes on some-
thing of the complexion of competitive business ;
which throws the emphasis on those features of
school life that will best attract students and donors.
The features which count most directly in these di-
rections are not the same as would count most
effectively toward the avowed ends of these schools.
The standards which it is found imperative to live
up to are not the highest standards of scholarly
work. Courtesy as well as expediency inclines
these schools to cultivate such appearances and
such opinions as may be expected to find favor
with men of wealth. These men of wealth are
business men, for the most part elderly men, who
are, as is well known, prevailingly of a conserva-
tive temper in all cultural matters, and more
especially as touches those institutions that bear
on business affairs.

A more far-reaching department of the educa-
tional system, though not technically rated as
such, is the periodical press, both newspapers
and magazines. This is a field of business enter-
prise, and business principles may be expected to
work more consistently and to a more unqualified

NATURAL DECAY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE 385

result in this field than in the school system,
where these principles come in incidentally.

The current periodical press, whether ephemeral
or other, is a vehicle for advertisements. This is
its raison d'etre, as a business proposition, and this
decides the lines of its management without mate-
rial qualification. Exceptions to the rule are
official and minor propagandist periodicals, and,
in an uncertain measure, scientific journals. The
profits of publication come from the sale of adver-
tising space. The direct returns from sales and
subscriptions are now a matter of wholly second-
ary consequence. Publishers of periodicals, of all
grades of transiency, aim to make their product
as salable as may be, in order to pass their adver-
tising pages under the eyes of as many readers as
may be. The larger the circulation the greater,
other things equal, the market value of the adver-
tising space. The highest product of this develop-
ment is the class of American newspapers called
“independent.” These in particular —and they
are followed at no great interval by the rest—
edit all items of news, comment, or gossip with
a view to what the news ought to be and
what opinions ought to be expressed on passing
events.’

The first duty of an editor is to gauge the senti-

1‘ Ought’’ is of course here used to denote business expediency,
not moral restraint.

386 THE THEORY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

ments of his readers, and then tell them what they
like to believe. By this means he maintains or
increases the circulation. His second duty is to
see that nothing is said in the news items or edi-
torials which may discountenance any claims or
announcements made by his advertisers, discredit
their standing or good faith, or expose any weak-
ness or deception in any business venture that is
or may become a valuable advertiser. By this
means he increases the advertising value of his
circulation.’ The net result is that both the news
columns and the editorial columns are commonly
meretricious in a high degree.

Systematic insincerity on the part of the osten-
sible purveyors of information and leaders of
opinion may be deplored by persons who stickle
for truth and pin their hopes of social salvation
on the spread of accurate information. But the
ulterior cultural effect of the insincerity which is
in this way required by the business situation
may, of course, as well be salutary as the reverse.
Indeed, the effect is quite as likely to be salutary,
if “salutary” be taken to mean favorable to the
maintenance of the established order, since the
insincerity is guided by a wish to avoid any
lesion of the received preconceptions and _ preju-

1 As a side line, which affords play for the staff’s creative talent,
whatever is exceptionally sensational at the same time that it is harm-
less to the advertisers’ interests should, in newspaper slang, be ‘‘ played
up.”?

NATURAL DECAY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE 387

dices. The insincerity of the newspapers and
magazines seems, on the whole, to be of a
conservative trend.

The periodical press is not only a purveyor of
news, opinions, and admonitions; it also supplies
the greater part of the literature currently read.
And in this part of its work the same underlying
business principles are in force. The endeavor is
to increase the circulation at any cost that will
result in an increased net return from the sale of
the advertising space. The literary output of the
magazines is of use for carrying the advertising
pages, and as a matter of business, as seen from
the standpoint of the business man’s interest, that
is its only use.

The standards of excellence that govern this
periodical literature seem fairly to be formulated
as follows: (1) In each given case it must conform
to the tastes and the most ready comprehension of
the social strata which the particular periodical is
designed to reach; (2) it should conduce to a
quickened interest in the various lines of services
and commodities offered in the advertising pages,
and should direct the attention of readers along
such lines of investment and expenditure as may
benefit the large advertisers particularly. At least
it must in no way hamper the purposes of the
advertisers. Nothing should go in a popular
magazine which would cast a sinister shadow over

388 THE THEORY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

any form of business venture that advertises or
might be induced to advertise.’

Taken in the aggregate, the literary output is
designed to meet the tastes of that large body of
people who are in the habit of buying freely. The
successful magazine writers are those who follow
the taste of the class to whom they speak, in any
aberration (fad, mannerism, or misapprehension)
and in any shortcoming of insight or force which
may beset that class. They must also conform to
the fancies and prejudices of this class as regards
the ideals — artistic, moral, religious, or social — for
which they speak. The class to which the success-
ful periodicals turn, and which gives tone to
periodical literature, is that great body of people
who are in moderately easy circumstances. Cul-
turally this means the respectable middle class
(largely the dependent business class) of various
shades of conservatism, affectation, and snobbery.’

On the whole, the literature provided in this way
and to this end seems to run on a line of slightly
more pronounced conservatism and affectation than
the average sentiment of the readers appealed to.

1 Business enterprises that are not notable advertisers may be
roundly taken to task, as, e.g., the Standard Oil Company or the Ameri-
can Sugar Refining Company ; and, indeed, it may be shrewd man-
agement to abuse these concerns, since such abuse redounds to the
periodical’s reputation for popular sympathy and independence.

2 «‘Snobbery’’ is here used without disrespect, as a convenient
term to denote the element of strain involved in the quest of gentility
on the part of persons whose accustomed social standing is less high
or less authentic than their aspirations.

NATURAL DECAY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE 389

This is true for the following reason. Readers
who are less conservative and less patient of affec-
tations, snobbery, and illiberality than the average
are in the position of doubters and dissentients.
They are less confident in their convictions of
what is right and good in all matters, and are also
not unwilling to make condescending allowances for
those who are less “ advanced,” and who must be
humored since they know no better; whereas those
who rest undoubting in the more conservative
views and a more intolerant affectation of gentility
are readier, because more naive, in their rejection
of whatever does not fully conform to their habits
of thought.

So it comes about that the periodical literature
is, on the whole, somewhat more scrupulously
devout in tone, somewhat more given to laud and
dilate upon the traffic of the upper leisure class
and to carry on the discussion in the terms and
tone imputed to that class, somewhat more prone
to speak deprecatingly of the vulgar innovations
of modern culture, than the average of the readers
to whom it is addressed. The trend of its teach-
ing, therefore, is, on the whole, conservative and
conciliatory. It is also under the necessity of
adapting itself to a moderately low average of
intelligence and information ; since on this head,
again, it is those who possess intelligence and infor-
mation that are readiest to make allowances; they

390 THE THEORY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

are, indeed, mildly flattered to do so, besides being
the only ones who can. It is a prime requisite to
conciliate a large body of readers.

This latter characteristic is particularly evident
in the didactic portion of the periodical literature.
This didactic literature, running on discussions of
a quasi-artistic and quasi-scientific character, is, by
force of the business exigencies of the case, de-
signed to favor the sensibilities of the weaker
among its readers by adroitly suggesting that the
readers are already possessed of the substance of
what purports to be taught and need only be
fortified with certain general results. There
follows a great spread of quasi-technical terms and
fanciful conceits. The sophisticated animal stories
and the half-mythical narratives of industrial pro-
cesses which now have the vogue illustrate the
results achieved in this direction.

The literary output issued under the surveil-
lance of the advertising office is excellent in
workmanship and deficient in intelligence and
substantial originality. What is encouraged and
cultivated is adroitness of style and a piquant
presentation of commonplaces. Harmlessness, not
to say pointlessness, and an edifying, gossipy
optimism are the substantial characteristics, which
persist through all ephemeral mutations of style,
manner, and subject-matter.

Business enterprise, therefore, it is believed.

NATURAL DECAY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE 391

gives a salutary bent to periodical literature. It
conduces mildly to the maintenance of archaic
ideals and philistine affectations, and inculcates
the crasser forms of patriotic, sportsmanlike, and
spendthrift aspirations.

The largest and most promising factor of cul-
tural discipline — most promising as a corrective
of iconoclastic vagaries — over which business
principles rule is national politics. The purposes
and the material effects of business politics have
already been spoken of above, but in the present
connection their incidental, disciplinary effects are
no less important. Business interests urge an
ageressive national policy and business men direct
it. Such a policy is warlike as well as patriotic.
The direct cultural value of a warlike business policy
is unequivocal. It makes for a conservative ani-
mus on the part of the populace. During war time,
and within the military organization at all times,
under martial law, civil rights are in abeyance ;
and the more warfare and armament the more
abeyance. Military training is a training in cere-
monial precedence, arbitrary command, and un-
questioning obedience. A military organization
is essentially a servile organization. Insubordi-
nation is the deadly sin. The more consistent
and the more comprehensive this military training,
the more effectually will the members of the com-

392 THE THEORY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

munity be trained into habits of subordination and
away from that growing propensity to make light
of personal authority that is the chief infirmity of
democracy. This applies first and most decidedly,
of course, to the soldiery, but it applies only in a
less degree to the rest of the population. They
learn to think in warlike terms of rank, authority,
and subordination, and so grow progressively more
patient of encroachments upon their civil rights.
Witness the change that has latterly been going
on in the temper of the German people.’

The modern warlike policies are entered upon
for the sake of peace, with a view to the orderly
pursuit of business. In their initial motive they
differ from the warlike dynastic politics of the
sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.
But the disciplinary effects of warlike pursuits and
of warlike preoccupations are much the same what-
ever may be their initial motive or ulterior aim.
The end sought in the one case was warlike mas-
tery and high repute in the matter of ceremonial
precedence ; in the other, the modern case, it is
pecuniary mastery and high repute in the matter
of commercial solvency. But in both cases alike
the pomp and circumstance of war and armaments,
and the sensational appeals to patriotic pride and

1Cf., e.g., Maurice Lair, l’ Imperialisme allemand, especially ch. II.
and III. The like change of sentiment is visible in the British com-
munity. Cf, Hobson, Imperialism, especially pt. II. ch. I. and III.

NATURAL DECAY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE 393

animosity made by victories, defeats, or compari-
sons of military and naval strength, act to rehabili-
tate lost ideals and weakened convictions of the
chauvinistic or dynastic order. At the same
stroke they direct the popular interest to other,
nobler, institutionally less hazardous matters than
the unequal distribution of wealth or of creature
comforts. Warlike and patriotic preoccupations
fortify the barbarian virtues of subordination and
prescriptive authority. Habituation to a warlike,
predatory scheme of life is the strongest disci-
plinary factor that can be brought to counteract
the vulgarization of modern life wrought by peace-
ful industry and the machine process, and to reha-
bilitate the decaying sense of status and differential
dignity. Warfare, with the stress on subordination
and mastery and the insistence on gradations of
dignity and honor incident to a militant organiza-
tion, has always proved an effective school in
barbarian methods of thought.

In this direction, evidently, lies the hope of a
corrective for “social unrest” and similar dis-
orders of civilized life. There can, indeed, be no
serious question but that a consistent return to the
ancient virtues of allegiance, piety, servility, graded
dignity, class prerogative, and prescriptive author-
ity would greatly conduce to popular content and
to the facile management of affairs. Such is the
promise held out by a strenuous national policy.

394 THE THEORY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

The reversional trend given by warlike ex-
perience and warlike preoccupations, it is plain,
does not set backward to the régime of natural
liberty. Modern business principles and the
modern scheme of civil rights and constitutional
government rest on natural-rights ground. But
the system of natural rights is a halfway house.
The warlike culture takes back to a more archaic
situation that preceded the scheme of natural
rights, viz. the system of absolute government,
dynastic politics, devolution of rights and honors,
ecclesiastical authority, and popular submission
and squalor. It makes not for a reinstatement
of the Natural Rights of Man but for a reversion
to the Grace of God.

The barbarian virtues of fealty and patriotism
run on national or dynastic exploit and aggrandize-
ment, and these archaic virtues are not dead. In
those modern communities whose hearts beat with
the pulsations of the world-market they find ex-
pression in an enthusiasm for the commercial
agerandizement of the nation’s business men.
But when once the policy of warlike enterprise
has been entered upon for business ends, these
loyal affections gradually shift from the business
interests to the warlike and dynastic interests, as
witness the history of imperialism in Germany and
England. The eventual outcome should be a re-
habilitation of the ancient patriotic animosity and

NATURAL DECAY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE 395

dynastic loyalty, to the relative neglect of business
interests. This may easily be carried so far as to
sacrifice the profits of the business men to the
exigencies of the higher politics.'

The disciplinary effect of war and armaments
and imperialist politics is complicated with a
selective effect. War not only affords a salutary
training, but it also acts to eliminate certain
elements of the population. The work of cam-
paigning and military tenure, such as is carried
on by England, America, or the other civilizing
powers, lies, in large part, in the low latitudes,
where the European races do not find a favorable
habitat. The low latitudes are particularly un-
wholesome for that dolicho-blond racial stock
that seems to be the chief bearer of the machine
industry. It results that the viability and the
natural increase of the soldiery is perceptibly
lowered. The service in the low latitudes, as
contrasted with Europe, for instance, is an extra-
hazardous occupation. The death rate, indeed,
exceeds the birth rate. But in the more advanced
industrial communities, of which the English and
American are typical, the service is a volunteer
service; which means that those who go to the
wars seek this employment by their own choice.
That is to say, the human material so drawn off
is automatically selected on the basis of a peculiar

1Cf., e.g., Hobson, Imperialism, pt. I. ch. VII.

396 THE THEORY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

spiritual fitness for this predatory employment ;
they are, on the whole, of a more malevolent and
vagabond temper, have more of the ancient bar-
barian animus, than those who are left at home
to carry on the work of the home community
and propagate the home population. And since
the troops and ships are officered by the younger
sons of the conservative leisure class and by the
buccaneering scions of the class of professional
politicians, a natural selection of the same char-
acter takes effect also as regards the officers.
There results a gradual selective elimination of
that old-fashioned element of the population that
is by temperament best suited for the old-fash-
ioned institutional system of status and servile
organization.’

1 The selective effect of warfare, both ancient and modern, has
been discussed by various writers. Protracted wars or a warlike policy
always have some such effect, no doubt, and in old times this has
shown itself to be a serious cultural factor. It is commonly regarded
that the selection results in an elimination of the ‘‘ best’? human
material. Perhaps the most cogent spokesman for this view is D. S.
Jordan, The Blood of the Nation. The ‘‘best’’ in this case must be
taken to mean the best for the purpose, not necessarily for other pur-
poses. In such a case as the Chinese or the Jewish peoples, e.g., a
very long-continued, though not in both cases a close, selective elimi-
nation of the peace-disturbing elements has left a residue that is highly
efficient (‘‘ good’’) in certain directions, but not good war material.
The case of the North-European peoples, however, in the present junc-
ture is somewhat different from these. Racially, the most efficient
war material among them seems to be those elements that contain an
appreciable admixture of the dolicho-blond stock. These elements at
the same time are apparently, on the whole, also the ones most gener-
ally endowed with industrial initiative and a large’ aptitude for the
machine technology and scientific research. Selective elimination by

NATURAL DECAY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE 397

This selective elimination of conservative ele-
ments would in the long run leave each succeeding
generation of the community less predatory and
less emulative in temper, less well endowed for
carrying on its life under the servile institutions
proper to a militant régime. But, for the present
and the nearer future, there can be little doubt
but that this selective shaping of the community’s
animus is greatly outweighed by the contrary
trend given by the discipline of warlike preoccu-
pations. What helps to keep the balance in
favor of the reversional trend is the cultural
leaven carried back into the home community
by the veterans. These presumptive past masters
in the archaic virtues keep themselves well in the
public eye and serve as exemplars to the impres-
sionable members of the community, particularly
to the less mature.’

war and military tenure in the case of these peoples should, therefore,
apparently lower both their fighting capacity and their industrial and
intellectual capacity ; so that, by force of this double and cumulative
effect, the resulting national decline should in their case be compre-
hensive and relatively precipitate.

1 With the complement of archaic virtues that invests these adepts
there is also associated a fair complement of those more elemental
vices that are growing obsolete in the peaceable civilized communities.
Such debaucheries, extravagances of cruelty, and general superfluity
of naughtiness as are nameless or impossible in civil life are blameless
matters of course in the service. In the nature of the case they are
inseparable from the service. ‘The service commonly leaves the vet-
erans physical, intellectual, and moral invalids (as witness the records
of the Pension Office). But these less handsome concomitants of the
service should scarcely be made a point of reproach to those brave
men whose devotion to the flag and the business interests has led them

398 THE THEORY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

The net outcome of the latter-day return to
warlike enterprise is, no doubt, securely to be
rated as fostering a reversion to national ideals of
servile status and to institutions of a despotic
character. On the whole and for the pres-
ent, it makes for conservatism, ultimately for
reversion.

The quest of profits leads to a predatory na-
tional policy. The resulting large fortunes call
for a massive government apparatus to secure
the accumulations, on the one hand, and for large
and conspicuous opportunities to spend the result-
ing income, on the other hand; which means
a militant, coercive home administration and some-
thing in the way of an imperial court life —
a dynastic fountam of honor and a courtly
bureau of ceremonial amenities. Such an ideal
is not simply a moralist’s day-dream; it is a
sound business proposition, in that it les on the
line of policy along which the business interests
are moving in their own behalf. If national
(that is to say dynastic) ambitions and warlike
aims, achievements, spectacles, and discipline be
given a large place in the community’s life,
together with the concomitant coercive police
surveillance, then there is a fair hope that the

by the paths of disease and depravity. Nor are the accumulated vices
to be lightly condemned, since their weight also falls on the conserva-
tive side ; being archaic and authenticated, their cultural bearing is,
on the whole, salutary.

NATURAL DECAY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE 399

disintegrating trend of the machine discipline
may be corrected. The régime of status, fealty,
prerogative, and arbitrary command would guide
the institutional growth back into the archaic
conventional ways and give the cultural structure
something of that secure dignity and _ stability
which it had before the times, not only of social-
istic vapors, but of natural rights as well. Then,
too, the rest of the spiritual furniture of the
ancient régime shall presumably be reinstated ;
materialistic scepticism may yield the ground to
a romantic philosophy, and the populace and the
scientists alike may regain something of that
devoutness and faith in preternatural agencies
which they have recently been losing. As the
discipline of prowess again comes to its own,
conviction and contentment with whatever is
authentic may return to distracted Christendom,
and may once more give something of a sacra-
mental serenity to men’s outlook on the present
and the future.

But authenticity and sacramental dignity belong
neither with the machine technology, nor with
modern science, nor with business traffic. In so
far as the aggressive politics and the aristo-
cratic ideals currently furthered by the business
community are worked out freely, their logical
outcome is an abatement of those cultural fea-
tures that distinguish modern times from what

400 THE THEORY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE

went before, including a decline of business
enterprise itself.t

How imminent such a consummation is to be
accounted is a question of how far the unbusiness-
like and unscientific disciple brought in by
aggressive politics may be expected to prevail
over the discipline of the machine industry. It
is difficult to believe that the machine technology
and the pursuit of the material sciences will be
definitively superseded, for the reason, among
others, that any community which loses these
elements of its culture thereby loses that brute
material force that gives it strength against its
rivals. And it is equally difficult to imagine how
any one of the communities of Christendom can
avoid entering the funnel of business and dynastic
politics, and so running through the process whereby
the materialistic animus is eliminated. Which of
the two antagonistic factors may prove the stronger
in the long run is something of a blind guess; but
the calculable future seems to belong to the one or
the other. It seems possible to say this much,
that the full dominion of business enterprise is
necessarily a transitory dominion. It stands to
lose in the end whether the one or the other of the
two divergent cultural tendencies wins, because it
is incompatible with the ascendancy of either.

1 See Chapter VIII. pp. 847-350.

Recto
raat wont