Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/728

 712 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

manipulations, by fraud or force, the case is not one of pure gambling, but rather of cheating.

In normal societies there is a rational system governing the possession of property. This system involves, on the one side, a certainty of consumption of product, or a part of product, by those whose labor has brought that product into being. On the psychical side such ownership serves as a stimulus to the under- taking of difficult or painful productive tasks. But even a bad system under which consumption does not follow production with full or reasonable certainty is better than no system at all. Gambling involves the denial of all system in the appoint- ment of property : it plunges the mind into a world of anarchy, where things come upon one, and pass from one miraculously, where the organized rejection of all reason is an essential factor. Thus gambling exhibits a deliberate reversion to a primitive mental attitude, with its barbarous superstitions and its strong, untamed, emotional excitement. It is fair to adduce the belief in " luck " as an important testimony to the derationalizing influences of gambling.

High degrees of cunning, memory, and judgment, as well as determination and self-command, are often found among certain classes of gamblers ; but it is signifi- cant that these qualities are useful only in proportion as the game is not pure gambling.

In thus exposing the irrationality of gambling, both as a mode of transferring property and as a mental occupation, I have implicitly exposed its immorality also. Its repudiation of equitable order involves at once an intellectual and a moral descent to a lower plane of thought and feeling.

The conditions which foster the gambling instinct are not difficult of discovery. The dull, prolonged monotony of uninteresting drudgery which constitutes the normal work-a-day life of large masses of people drives them to sensational reactions which are crude and violent. The instinctive zest in the unexpected, the hazardous, and the disorderly must find satisfaction somewhere. Even a moral order imposed in the public interest, if too uniform and rigorous, will arouse, not merely in bad but in good natures, reactions toward lawlessness. If the monot- ony of toil drives large numbers of workers to such violent sensational relief in gambling, the ennui of idleness prompts the leisured classes to the same abuse.

Regarded as a mode of transfer of property, gambling involves a union of several anti-social desires. For a willingness to accept the unearned, facile gains of gambling quickens the latent instinct of avarice, and invites infatuated self- absorption and a callous indifference to the misfortunes of others.

The part which alcohol plays in gambling is naturally a rather large one, for while the professional " mixed " gambler is under the necessity of keeping his head clear in order to retain his cunning, the non-professional finds in alcoholic drinks just the stimulus which is usually necessary to induce that instability of judgment and disregard of the future which are conditions of gambling. The fact that cheating is inseparably associated with most actual modes of gambling serves to loosen general morality, and in particular to sap the rationale of property.

Since professional gambling involves some use of superior knowledge, trickery, or force, which in its effect on the " chances " amounts to " loading " the dice, the non-professional gambler finds himself a loser in the long run, and these losses are, in fact, a fruitful cause of crime among clerks who have the handling of sums of money not their own. But, living in an atmosphere where secret speculation with other people's money is so rife, it is easy to understand how the employee sets about justifying himself for " borrowing " the firm's money.

Every step which places the attainment of property upon a sane, rational basis, associating it with proportionate personal productive effort ; every step which enables men and women to find orderly interests in work and leisure by gaining opportunities to express themselves in art or play under conditions which stimulate new human wants and supply means of satisfying them, will make for the destruc- tion of gambling. JOHN A. HOBSON, in International Journal of Ethics, January, 1905. E. B. W.