The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1902-09-20

nothing for it or it's interests. It made
no recognition of the ethical relations
of men in society; it taught the fiction
Of the freedom of contract. but every
working man, and every other man who
has ever made a contract, knows that
| there is no such thing, purely and
simply, as freedom Of contract.
Contracts are entered into freely, Of
| course, and when the terms have been
agreed upon we say that the parties
have been free to enter upon such
terms. This is legal fiction. The par
| ties were free to adopt the terms Of the
| contract so far as their own will was
concerned, but conditions, circum-
stances, many things, compel them to
accept the terms rather than to avoid
the contract. Political economy has
failed to recognize this feature of what
is known as the freedom Of contract,
and it has also failed to recognize the
fact that the making of a contract is
an economic process, the carrying it
out an ethical process; that is to say,
after a contract is made the relations
of the parties to it become ethical in
their nature, and it is the moral char
acter of the men making the contract
that gives it solidity.
Fortunately for mankind there is
new school growing up, and growing
up rapidly, which recognizes the ethi-
cal elements of political economy. This
school agrees with few writer's in the
early part of the last century that po-
lftical economy aims at the diffusion
of sutficiency and comfort throughout
kIe4 ~ Hxy tSp1
cation or enlargement Of the outward
means and materials Of human enjoy
1rent This was the doctrine of DR..
Thomas Chalmers, of Edinburgh, and
it is right. Doctor Chalmers was of
the opinion that shis object would be
gained tf he ,cosiid demonstrate that
even 1or & a -bsin, of
eeee -. il - G3s = ~
catibn VAS tie flrst ana ereat esf object
Of national policy, and that while this
is englected a government in its anx-
ious and incessant labors for a we'll
conditioned state of the commonwealth
would only founder from one delusive
shift or expedient to another, under the
double misfortune of being held re-
sronsible for the prosperity of the land,
and yet finding that to be an element
helplessly and hopelessly beyond its
control. This is as true today as it
was seventy-five years ago.
Political economy, in order to attract
the attention and hold the interest of
the producers Of society," must consider
the great principles Of the science on
a broader basis. It must teach that
the interest Of employers and employees
are reciprocal and not Identical; that
the great questions of ethics and eco
romics underlie the practice of strikes,
the cost of living, the adjustment of
scales of wages, and the methods of
settlement of difficulties, or, more
properly, how to avoid them entirely.
All these things and hundred others
must be brought into the political econ
omy Of the future, and when this is
done, when the grand science is illum-
ired by broader comprehension of the
real elements of human nature and the
relations Of men in society, and when
the necessity Of fitting ones self for
social service as we'll as for the accu-
mutation of wealth is recognized. the
working man will be found among the
most ardent students of political econ
Omy. CARROLL D. WRIGHT