ABSTRACT

The second argument against private pr>RC is that it is a low motive. A man should be content with that which is enough to sustain him in his function, concentrate his energies on its performance, and leave the rest to the community. To this it may be replied (a) that though social service is the higher motive not all men will feel in this way, and society may get the best out of certain types by giving them the opportunities that they seek. Further than this, (b) with the chance of pr>RC a man takes the risks of failure. He assumes a responsibility which the salaried man avoids, and he may assume it precisely for the sake of freedom to carry out his own ideas and see how they will work out. Finally, (c) if pr>RC is a poor motive the necessity of avoiding loss is at least a valuable economic safeguard, and one that is not always realized with BD5R28ent force where loss and gain are diffused through a community. Private enterprise has this merit, that accounts must at least balance, or it rapidly becomes impossible to carry on. It is far more difR2D;C to drive home the same necessity in communal transactions where losses are disguised in the shape of rising prices and increased discomfort, but there is no actual stoppage of production by the impossibility of obtaining further credit. No doubt at long last the community which is spending more than it earns must arrive at bankruptcy, but the disaster is so much the greater because there is no one behind the community, as the community is behind the individual, to save it from absolute destruction when bankruptcy arrives.