Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/590

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS.

The Race Problem in International Industry. Prominent thinkers have expressed their belief that the condition of international economic activity and the result of industrial competition between nations are due largely to race peculiarities. With the growth of a world-market the economic superiority or inferiority of nations has been made more prominent, and the problems arising therefrom are among the most important subjects of investigation for the economist and sociologist.

Are there inferior and superior races, or are the supposed inferiorities and superi- orities equilibrated when all circumstances are considered ? In the time of early Christianity and by the preceding schools of philosophy, the moral and ethical equal- ity of men was proclaimed. In Greece a distinction was made between Greeks and barbarians until the Sophists and Stoics came forward and taught equality. In the modern period, with Rousseau at the head, philosophy declared the equality of races, and in still more modern times Darwin asserted that the backward peoples possess the capacity in time for reaching the achievements of the higher races.

Nothing is more false than this. In economic activity the difference between races and peoples in productive capacity is enormous. Bagehot has said that in pro- ductive ability twenty normal Englishmen would be incomparably greater than a thousand Australian black fellows. This is true of all kinds of work. Where mixed and pure races exist in the same state, the leading roles fall to the mixed, especially if they have white blood in them. With the removal of slavery in the United States the pure negroes have come into a most lamentable situation and have shown them- selves incapable of any large undertakings and of anything more than a very low level of economic activity.

In the extraordinary meagerness of wants and the untiring industry of the Mongolian race there exists a certain kind of economic superiority, but the final determining factor here also is race endowment. The Chinese seem to be a people without nerves. They can work continuously from early morning till late at night with little food or rest. They lack inventiveness, are very imitative, and work with machine-like routine. The Japanese laborer is similar to the Chinese, though a little more inventive and less imitative. The so-called danger of industrial competition from the yellow race is limited by race characteristics, and a sound industry has little to fear from the competition of eastern Asia. These people lack bodily strength and endurance, one Englishman being able to do the work of three or four Japanese.

Coming to the European peoples, it is clearly seen that the position of the nations in the world-market is determined chiefly, not by natural resources, geographical situa- tion, or political power, but by endowment due to race characteristics. Leroy- Beaulieu ascribes the lack of originality and creative power of the Russian principally to the barrenness and monotony of the land. But he has overestimated the influence of natural environment. The difficulty rather arises from the mixture of Mongolian blood. Their industrial workers who are leaders in the factories are imported from western Europe. For the same work it requires more laborers than in England or Germany, and the cost of supervision is also much greater.

While there are several factors that are important in determining the place a nation will occupy in competition for the international market, race or blood is the decisive one. This is also shown clearly by commercial history from the ancient Phoenicians to the modern British.

When the race historian glances back over written history, he will be astonished at the changes in political and economic dominance from one people to another. First was the period ruled by the Semitic people; second, the Graeco-Italian period ; then the so-called Romance peoples, but with the aid of a mixture of Germanic blood; and, finally, the Dutch, British, Germans, and North Americans, belonging in larger

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