598 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
ingmen to practice themselves in the work of business manage- ment to grow into the trust and confidence of others, and gradually rise to posts in which their business abilities will find scope." '
Most recent economic writers agree in taking this more com- prehensive view of their subject, and as a result these judgments are based upon a consideration of social forces other than eco- nomic, quite as much as is the case with those who write from the sociological viewpoint. Two further illustrations will suffice.
Professor Clark premises the identity of interests of capital- ist and laborer in production, and the antagonism of interests in distribution. The adjustment of these antagonistic interests is first made by competition. But competition, which at first is a fair rivalry, becomes a bitter struggle and finally an open war- fare. This is succeeded logically, and is being succeeded in reality, by arbitration. But, while arbitration is a substitution of justice for force, yet attention is concentrated on the terms of division of the joint product. This in time tends in the direc- tion of antagonisms, and also fails to secure the largest product for division. Both competition and arbitration emphasize the element of antagonism. But profit-sharing and cooperation emphasize the element of harmony. Profit-sharing, being the stage intermediate between arbitration and cooperation, has this advantage of cooperation that it blends the two classes, the employer and the workmen ; for the workman becomes, in con- nection with the employer, an entrepreneur, though not a capital- ist. Yet the organization and direction of the business retain most of the advantages of the preceding systems. Most of Professor Clark's illustrations are in reality product-sharing; therefore constitute a substitute form for the wage system, really preceding it, and are not a modification of the wage sys- tem at all. But profit-sharing, as a modification of the wage system, is favored because it is a means of transition to true cooperation.
The following quotation summarizes this opinion : "In some fields it [profit-sharing] has proved superior to competition at
' PrincipUs of Political Economy, p. 387.
