But so long as two natures are mixed together, and
the strange creature which results from the combination is now under one
influence and now under another, so long you will make nothing of him
except from the old-fashioned moral--or, if you please,
imaginative--point of view.
Even the laws of political economy itself cease to guide us when they
touch moral government. So long as labor is a chattel to be bought and
sold, so long, like other commodities, it follows the condition of
supply and demand. But if, for his misfortune, an employer considers
that he stands in human relations toward his workmen; if he believes,
rightly or wrongly, that he is responsible for them; that in return for
their labor he is bound to see that their children are decently taught,
and they and their families decently fed and clothed and lodged; that he
ought to care for them in sickness and in old age,--then political
economy will no longer direct him, and the relations between himself and
his dependents will have to be arranged on quite other principles.
So long as he considers only his own material profit, so long supply and
demand will settle every difficulty; but the introduction of a new
factor spoils the equation.
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