330 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING
general trend toward luxurious living and self-indulgence, it is losing imperativeness, if not falling into disrepute among the well-to-do classes, and through their example lies lightly upon the consciences of the poor. Diligence and loyalty on the part of employes are heavily emphasized as moral obli gations throughout the business world ; but it is worthy of note that the reciprocal obligations on the part of employers have been much more tardy in acquiring social imperative ness, and even yet have not done so in anything like the same measure. It is only another indication of the fact that business men are the dominant class in our society, and, therefore, set our standards. Naturally they perceive more readily and feel more keenly the obligations of employes than they do their own, and so place the stress. Sobriety, or temperance, the abstention from intoxicating drinks, is a requirement felt throughout the business world to be almost as imperative as honesty, for the obvious rea son that the opposite vice inevitably leads to economic dis aster in one way or another. Of course, other influences also have contributed to the exaltation of this virtue.
(c) The business man accepts, more or less subcon sciously, a double standard of ethics. Sombart * has called attention to a phase of recent ethical development, which though not obvious at first, is full of interest. With the growth of the elaborate modern economic organization, cer tain virtues such as frugality and solidity, or reliability are " objectivised," i.e., they come to be attached to the char acter and conduct of the business enterprise itself rather than to the personal character and conduct of the business man. This is due to the fact that the business has become corporate and impersonal rather than individual and per sonal. For instance, the great business corporation is man aged according to the strictest economy no waste is per mitted ; but in their personal lives the capitalistic owners of the business may use the money thus frugally acquired in the most lavish and wasteful expenditures. And the corpora- 1 " Der Bourgeois," p. 336, ff.
�� �
