Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/566

 550 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

battles, were utterly crushed in the death of the weaker and the survival of the stronger. When a thousand workmen compete for five hundred jobs, it is to the credit of human nature and the police if they do not cut each other's throats. When capitalists bankrupt their rivals, it is only the recluse, the agitator, the prophet, who whispers or shouts " injustice." The man in the struggle sees only necessity. It is vain to speak of freedom or of right and wrong, where the choice is limited to life and death, to success and failure. The first obligation in war is victory, and that is the reason why "war is hell." But when victory is won, when competition ends in monopoly, when organization and subordination take the place of struggle, then the victor is free ; then he can listen to the still small voice of right.

It is the growth of monopoly and centralization in each social institution which has in the end subordinated necessity to freedom, and has paved the way not only for higher convictions of moral right, but also for the incorporation of these convictions in the form of legal rights. The freedom, which thus emerges within each institution is "institutional freedom," corresponding to the factor of organization, just as material freedom corre- sponds to the material basis of each institution. Institutional freedom is private property ; and the ethical phase of property is the judgment of the right or wrong concerning choices which proprietors are free to make. This is personal ethics, which has a twofold character. It may refer to the effect of the free choices on the character and destiny of self, or on the character and welfare of others. But in either case the ethical judgment is unwarranted unless the person is secure in that control over the wide range of services of others which we understand by property. Now, competition is not property, but struggle for property. Its criterion is not the right nor the wrong, but the successful. Property is a requisite for survival, but it is not mere ownership. It is also the organization, subordination, dis- cipline, efficiency, of the human agents combined under the manacrement of the proprietor. And until monopoly is reached this organization is never so secure that it can dispense with the equipment for fight. There is always another organization, as