CHAPTER yU. 



THE ECONOMIC GAIN OF COOPERATION. 



IT is doubtless true that the popular imagination exaggerates 

 the possible economic gain of cooperation. The reasoning 

 in regard to this and all other socialistic and semi -socialistic 

 problems assumes certain conditions in the nature of mankind 

 which do not exist. It is assumed either (a) that mankind is 

 moved by a desire for the general good, or (b) that by legal 

 enactment men can be made to act as if they were so moved; 

 while, as a matter of fact, (a) mankind is moved by the desire 

 of personal advantage, and (b) no legal enactment can produce 

 any other condition. 



I have no occasion here to consider the effect of this under- 

 mining of premises upon the doctrines of ])ure socialism, 

 which have been expounded with clear and perhaps unassail- 

 able logic if all the premises are accepted, but all reasoners 

 are aware of the fatal effect upon logical edifices of any inse- 

 curity in the premised foundations. Illustrations occur every- 

 where. For example, all engineers know that but for one 

 thing hot air is a far more economical and safer source of 

 power than steam, and one of our greatest engineers, in 

 ignorance of tliat one thing, devoted years of his life, and 

 several fortunes, to the construction of hot-air engines; the 

 one fatal defect, whicli experiment only could demonstrate, 

 was the fact that under the high rate of temperature necessary, 

 the working parts of the engine could not be constructed of 

 iron and operated profitably, if at all. Hot-air engines of high 

 power are tiierefore impossible until science shall disclose some 

 new methods of dealing with iron, or the use of some other 

 metal becomes economically possible. In like manner I am 

 sure that those who have liad most experience in concrete deal- 

 ings with mankind in business affairs will agree that many 

 plans of social reform which seem perfectly feasible to many 

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