28 W. G. Langworthy Taylor 



III 



THEORY OF THE PSYCHIC CONJUNCTURE 



The psychic conjuncture consists primarily of those fixed or 

 rather constant ideas which we take for granted in industry, and 

 which are therefore a part of the conditions under which we act. 

 Those ideas are subjective in the sense that they are psychologi- 

 cal and within us as individuals; but they are objective in the 

 sense that they are always the hypotheses and never the Con- 

 clusions of our thought. Moreover, they are normal and hence 

 social among industrial men. Of course, all human institutions 

 have a more or less direct influence upon industrial thought; but 

 as one of those more specifically economic, I would mention the 

 great institution of credit, with its appropriate paraphernalia of 

 banks, trust companies, clearing houses, bill brokers, exchanges 

 and boards of trade, guaranty funds Or "reserves," money mar- 

 kets, discounts, and establishments for savings, insurance, coop- 

 erative building and loan, agricultural credit, etc. Evidently this 

 great institution of credit by which we are enabled to adjust the 

 personal obligations arising from our acquisition of distant or 

 future goods by means of near or present payments, thus liqui- 

 dating and acquitting our personal obligations with further 

 recourse only in cases of accident or fraud — is the most gigantic 

 department in modern industry. 



Another example of the nature of the psychic conjuncture is 

 the division of society into industrial classes. This constant idea, 

 this caste idea, gives us an opportunity to test the objectivity of 

 the psychic conjuncture, its non-ego characteristics. According 

 to the socialists, the different industrial classes arose with modern 

 capitalism ; they admit that these classes were made possible by 

 capitalism, and they claim that capitalism must be abolished in 

 order to abolish the class distinctions. But they mean to abolish 

 capitalism without abolishing the improvements -that were the 

 conditions precedent in its creation. These improvements were 

 the condition of the creation of the classes, but are not the condi- 

 tion of their perpetuation. This seems improbable. 



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