11. Is competition wrong?—But the critics of present methods sometimes. are willing to go to the extreme of denying the right to compete; they would deny to a man the right to enter business if he wanted to. This is the argument of socialism. Govern mental monopoly in each line of business, we are told, is far better than to permit private individuals to engage in business in accordance with their own inclinations. The subject is too large a one for dis cussion here. We can only suggest some of the things that competition does for society, and leave to the individual business man to determine for himself, whether or not, when he competes honestly for busi ness in the various ways that modern progress has put at his disposal, he is engaging in an illegitimate, un economic, unjustifiable activity.
12. What conipetition does.—Would the world really be better if the field of business were not open to anyone who cared to enter it ? Those who believe in competition and in letting each man do the work that he wants to do, say that the present method of doing business is necessary if people are to continue to use their brains to produce better, cheaper, more convenient goods of all kinds. Inventive genius, in other words, is best fostered by holding out to the inventor the opportunity to get such reward as he can induce the public to give him in the open market.
Furthermore, after an invention is perfected, if it were not for competition and the necessity of adopt ing intensive selling measures so that the inventor could get his financial reward, the public might be very slow in finding out about the new product. This is, perhaps, one of the greatest services of competition. A man who has something to sell that he thinks will satisfy a want of society—something that will make life easier or happier or better—cannot hide his goods if he wants to get his reward. He must tell the public about them. Competitive selling, then, is an educa tor; it carries the message of new goods, new methods, new conveniences, new luxuries, to the farthermost points of the earth, by the printed word, by display, and by word of mouth of the personal business rep resentatives who have done so much for business and for civilization ; and it does all this in a quicker, more economical, and niore effective way, probably, than it could be done under any other system of MI dustry than the one under which we are now living.
13. Conclusion.—When all is said and done, the fact remains that we are operating under the com petitive system of industry—a system that permits a man to select his own business—a system that does not by law limit the number of people who engage in any given kind of industry, and which must, there fore, permit anyone in any business to do anything that is honest and in good taste to induce people to buy his goods. Even if we admit, for the sake of argument, that intense competition does raise prices and increase extravagance of expenditure, what are we going to do about it? Shall any one manufacturer or any one dealer cease to go after business by any honest means at his disposal—shall he discontinue his advertising, draw in his salesmen, tear down his sign, board up his windows, and, with his goods carefully out of sight for fear tbey might encourage buying, do business with intending customers thru a hole in the wall? Nothing so foolish as this is called for, either by ethics or by economics. The fact that the competitive system continues, proves that most people want it to continue, and, if they want competition, they must permit the methods of- competition that will get busi ness. Dishonest methods must go, and so also must methods that are against public morals and public taste. The effective, honest and intelligent methods of competition, however, thust remain; and no manu facturer or dealer who uses the great tools of adver tising, and of personal salesmanship in the thousands of ways that good sense, good taste and good business suggest, with an honest desire to deal fairly with com petitors and with the public, need apologize for his activities, or fear that he is doing anything save that which is for the best interests of society.