The unsolved riddle of social justice / by Stephen Leacock.

  • Stephen Leacock
Date:
1920
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The unsolved riddle of social justice / by Stephen Leacock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    coercive state were fundamental assumptions with the classicists. With this there went, on the psychological side, the further assumption of a general selfishness or self-seeking as the principal motive of the individual in the economic sphere. Oddly enough this assumption—the most warrantable of the lot—was the earliest to fall under disrepute. The plain assertion that every man looks out for himself (or at best for himself and his immediate family) touches the tender conscience of humanity. It is an unpalatable truth. None the less it is the most nearly true of all the broad generalizations that can be attempted in regard to mankind. The essential problem then of the classicists was to ask what would happen if an industrial community, possessed of the modern control over machinery and power, were allowed to follow the promptings of ‘‘ enlightened selfishness ” in an environment based upon free contract and the right of property in land and goods. The answer was of the most cheering description. The result would be a progressive amelioration of society, increasing in proportion to the completeness with which the fundamental principles involved were allowed to act, and tending ultimately towards
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