s are being made in a field that up to the present time
has been virtually untouched by the human race. Mankind has gone into
these experiments hopefully, trustingly, blindly, without any guarantee
of their workability.

A casual examination of the premises on which the capitalist experiment
is built will show the extremely precarious position in which the people
who are dependent upon it now find themselves.

The capitalist experiment is built on the assumption that competition
rather than co-operation is the effective means of promoting social
well-being. Acting under this theory, each man is to forage for himself.
This individual activity was relied upon to promote initiative and to
stimulate ambition. In practice, capitalist society has been compelled
to abandon competition in many of its aspects. Monopoly is the opposite
of competition, yet the modern capitalist world is full of monopoly
because monopoly pays better than competition--it is a more workable
economic scheme.

Following out the assumption that competition is the life of economic
society, one arrives at a necessary corollary to the general theory. The
purpose of competition is to injure, wipe out and dispose of the
competitor. Therefore the misfortune of our competitors is our good
fortune. This would lead, as applied to the actual conditions of life,
to some such formula as:

1. Bankrupt your competitor and you will profit.

2. Impoverish your neighbor and you will benefit.

3. Injure your fellow-man and you will gain.

Stated thus baldly and harshly, these three propositions sound
incredibly silly, particularly in view of the example the world has just
had of large scale competition--the World War--yet they are a fair
picture of the line of thought and conduct accepted as rational by
modern economic society. The normal processes of competition are
directed to the destruction of competitors. War is a frankly avowed
means of smashing rivals. Nationalism is built on the theory that "our"
nation is superior to all other nations, and that, in the long run, it
is capable of defeating (injuring) them.

The practice of such ideas render an effective organization of society
virtually impossible, and it renders social catastrophe almost
inevitable. Bankruptcy breeds bankruptcy. Impoverishment is a contagious
economic plague. Injury leads to bitterness, hatred and further injury.
These logical fruits of competition once admitted into the econom