Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/179

 ETHICS OF THE COMPETITIVE PROCESS 165

operation those abilities which already exist ; but we differ from him in that we hold that men are so endowed intellectually and emotionally as to render it at least conceivably possible for them so to conduct their competitive efforts as to secure at once the progressive improvement of their race and a life of relative prosperity and happiness for themselves. In other words, con- trary to Kidd, we believe that, whatever may be our present state, we are not shut off from conceiving a possible one, in which, while admitting to the fullest the competitive principle, social methods will be so perfected that through a wider diffusion of knowledge, a better adjustment of relations between employer and employed, a more enlightened sense of moral responsibility, and a more nearly perfect organization of industry generally, not only will the means be given to each individual to make known the capabilities, manual or intellectual, which he possesses, but the opportunity afforded for exercising those talents in a manner both remunerative to himself and useful to society at large. Thus, through the employment of forces at their maximum degrees of efficiency and through the diminution of waste formerly due to enforced idleness and misdirected efforts, it may be hoped that the aggregate economic product will be greatly increased, and at the same time that the conditions which we have mentioned above will secure its distribution according to correct principles of justice. Under such circum- stances we believe that future social progress would be possible, and at the same time a regime maintained which would be rational and beneficent to the individuals affected by it.

What we have thus far said has been in answer to the thesis of Kidd that individual and race interest are necessarily, and therefore forever, irreconcilable. As a matter of fact, however, we hold, as do of course the great majority of thinking men, that our social system, even as it is at present constituted and conducted, possesses a present utilitarian rationality to the great majority of individuals. At the same time we admit that there are some to whom this assertion does not hold true. When, for example, we have able-bodied men or women seeking work ear- nestly and unable to find it, or individuals deprived of such means