Show 4 Reviews SPEAKING of the Ethics of Democracy Democracy Democracy racy racy which term may be taken to include the ethics of trade and the ethics of labor there is a queer phase of it exhibited in Mr Junius Henri Brownes Browne's essay on Pecuniary Independence ence in the May number of Har Harpers Mr Browne sets forth the desirability of pecuniary independence in his usual terse and ha happy style even going so far as to say that it is every mans man's duty to strive ve for such independence But at the same time he says that this independence independence independence inde inde- cannot be achieved by the manual labor How then may we ask is it to be achieved Obviously all that goes to make up wealth must be produced by labor and what one does not produce himself he must get in some way from the labor of others and the only equivalent he can give must be the product of his own his own labor It follows therefore that to be independent ent one must get something without giving any equivalent and since it is the duty of ever every man to strive for independence it is also his duty to endeavor to secure some of the products of his mans man's labor without giving giving giving ing any anything thing in return This would knock the bottom out of all ethics and reduce man in the scale of evolution to a place below the level of the beast for many even of the lower animals individual interests to those of the whole species This sort of individualism will not hold good either in theory or in practice Mans Man's superiority is based on interdependence and the condition of further progress is that the desire for individual wealth instead instead instead in in- stead of being intensified shall be weakened However extreme our dualism we must admit that all wealth is wrested from nature by labor and that therefore we can never become independent of labor So that pecuniary pecuniary pecuniary independence simply means that we divert to our own uses a certain portion portion portion por por- tion of the labor of others and that such independence lasts only so long as those others remain in a relative state of dependence And according to Mr Browne our chief duty consists in preventing others from performing theirs The philosophy which is to solve our present social and financial difficulties must be based on far broader ideas than those set forth in this essay IN the May Scribners Scribner's s Mr F. F J. J Stimson writing on the Ethics of Democracy gives sOl some e interesting statistics showing to what extent na national and ad state and state legislation is tending towards socialism and communism He shows that a very large percentage of the laws passed in the various state and andin andin andin in the national legislature during the years 1890 and 1891 were socialistic in their tendency while a very small num num ber seventeen ber-seventeen seventeen out of more than twelve thousand were thousand were individualistic To be sure there is nothing strange about this since from the very nature of legislation it is bound to be the case but the striking thought it brings to our minds is that individualists even of the most extreme type can and do always find excuses es for continually adding adding adding add add- ing to the already unwieldy and to a large extent exten t useless mass of legislation with which our civilization is burdened There are single acts in some of our state codes larger than the whole code of Justinian and when we consider how rapidly statues are accumulating it makes us wish that more of our 1 and statesmen were individualists in fact as well as by profession If there is not soon some change in the practice as well as in the theories of legislative bodies in this country we too will find ourselves passing through In an era of repeal and it it- may prove much more difficult to sift out worthless and pernicious s statues from our codes than it has been to enact them |