ce
companies, savings banks, trusts, etc., proceed on the belief that men
in positions of power and control will use their positions for their own
advantage. They think that that is only common sense. "What else are we
here for?" It is the supreme test of a system of government whether its
machinery is adequate for repressing the selfish undertakings of cliques
formed on special interests and saving the public from raids of
plunderers. The modern democratic states fail under this test. There is
not a great state in the world which was not democratized in the
nineteenth century. There is not one of them which did not have great
financial scandals before the century closed. Financial scandal is the
curse of all the modern parliamentary states with a wide suffrage. They
give liberty and security, with open chances for individual enterprise,
from which results great individual satisfaction and happiness, but the
political machinery offers opportunities for manipulation and corrupt
abuse. They educate their citizens to seek advantages in the industrial
organization by legislative devices, and to use them to the uttermost.
The effect is seen in the mores. We hear of plutocracy and tainted
money, of the power of wealth, and the wickedness of corporations. The
disease is less specific. It is constitutional. The critics are as
subject to it as the criticised. A disease of the mores is a disease of
public opinion as to standards, codes, ideas of truth and right, and of
things worth working for and means of success. Such a disease affects
everybody. It penetrates and spoils every institution. It spreads from
generation to generation, and at last it destroys in the masses the
power of ethical judgment.

+168. The standard of living.+ One of the purest of all the products of
current mores is the standard of living. It belongs to a subgroup and is
a product of the mores of a subgroup. It has been called a psychological
or ethical product, which view plainly is due to an imperfect analysis
or classification. The standard of living is the measure of decency and
suitability in material comfort (diet, dress, dwelling, etc.) which is
traditional and habitual in a subgroup. It is often wise and necessary
to disregard the social standard of comfort, because it imposes foolish
expenses and contemptible ostentation, but it is very difficult to
disregard the social standard of comfort. The standard is upheld by fear
of social disapproval, if o