The Idea of Justice in Political Economy [12]
different kinds of labor, only an abstraction totally foreign to public sentiment will conceive the idea of reducing all this labor to mere quantities of handiwork; natural public sentiment will simply value more highly the labor which requires more education or talent. Those qualities will always be most highly considered which serve the common objects; those which only relate to the individual and his selfish aims are less esteemed. Only a complete misconception therefore could establish individual needs as a standard of distributing justice. Older socialism wisely held aloof at all times from this aberration. Even the first really social-democratic platform in Germany, that of Eisenach of 1869, did not vet venture to commit such a folly. The progressive victory of vulgarity and rudeness first demanded in the Gotha platform of 1875 the division of the aggregate labor products among individuals according to their "reasonable needs." The proviso of reasonableness was intended to prevent excesses; it does not remove the low conception. With his needs a man serves himself only; with his labor, his virtue, his accomplishments, he serves, mankind, and these determine the judgment which esteems them as just. When the great social communities which follow the most various interests and what is just in them are concerned, the attempt will always be made, more or less, to weigh the different qualities and accomplishments of men in their result and in their connection with the objects of the community. Talents and knowledge, virtues and accomplishments, merit in short is considered. Moral qualities are often apparently overlooked, great talents whose achievements and deeds are generally visible are apparently over-estimated. But only because one is more noticed than the other, and the moral judgment which values individuals according to what they are to the whole can naturally only judge by what it sees. And therein lies the contrast between moral and economic value. In the ordinary economic valuation activities and products have value in the same measure, as individuals covet them for the satisfaction of their personal needs. In the moral valuation, on which the judgment as to justice depends, the activities of individuals receive their value, according as they serve the inherent ends of the whole. True justice, says Ihering, is a balancing between consequences and acts, which is weighed equally to all citizens according to the measure of the value of these acts to society. Both valuations go in life side by side, combating and influencing one another. The one rules the market, the other moral judgments and conceptions. They approach each other as mankind grows more perfect. Through what mechanism the arising conflicts are lessened and mitigated, we still have to discuss.
IV
If in the economic order we could recognize only the ruling of blind forces, of selfish interests, natural masses and mechanical processes, it would be a constant battle, a chaotic anarchy; it would present the "bellum omnium contra omnes." That this is not the case was perceived by those who saw in the exertion of egoism the only motive force of economic life; they helped themselves over the inexplicable conclusion that out of the blind struggle of selfish individuals peaceful society should grow out, with the ideal conception of a pre-established harmony of forces as in the conception of Leibnitz. And yet any impartial glance at life tells us that this harmony does not exist, but that it is striven for slowly and gradually. No, harmony does not exist per se; selfish impulses combat each other, natural masses tend to destroy each other, the mechanical action of natural forces interferes relentlessly still to-day; the struggle for existence is to-day still carried on in the struggle of competition; the buoyancy of individual activity has even with the noblest and most distinguished men a flavor of egoism; with the masses it is, inwardly curbed indeed by the moral results of social life, the potent cause of most actions.
IV
If in the economic order we could recognize only the ruling of blind forces, of selfish interests, natural masses and mechanical processes, it would be a constant battle, a chaotic anarchy; it would present the "bellum omnium contra omnes." That this is not the case was perceived by those who saw in the exertion of egoism the only motive force of economic life; they helped themselves over the inexplicable conclusion that out of the blind struggle of selfish individuals peaceful society should grow out, with the ideal conception of a pre-established harmony of forces as in the conception of Leibnitz. And yet any impartial glance at life tells us that this harmony does not exist, but that it is striven for slowly and gradually. No, harmony does not exist per se; selfish impulses combat each other, natural masses tend to destroy each other, the mechanical action of natural forces interferes relentlessly still to-day; the struggle for existence is to-day still carried on in the struggle of competition; the buoyancy of individual activity has even with the noblest and most distinguished men a flavor of egoism; with the masses it is, inwardly curbed indeed by the moral results of social life, the potent cause of most actions.