Social environment and moral progress / by Alfred Russel Wallace.

  • Alfred Russel Wallace
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Social environment and moral progress / by Alfred Russel Wallace. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    71/180 page 59
    X] Adulteration, Bribery, Gambling future. But the great capitalists who, either singly or by means of what are called rings or combines, purchase such vast quantities of the special product as to create a scarcity in the market, lead¬ ing to a large rise of price, are ingenious robbers rather than gamblers, because, by clever dealings with such a monopoly, often aided by false rumours widely cir¬ culated in newspapers owned or bribed by them, they are able to make enormous profits at the expense of those who are obliged to purchase for actual business purposes or for daily use. This is one of the methods by which the great mil¬ lionaires and multi-millionaires of the world accumulate their wealth, every penny of which is at the cost of the consuming public. This is certainly as immoral as any of the petty forms of swindling with marked cards, loaded dice, or the wilful losing of a race ; yet the possessors of such wealth are usually held to be clever business men, whose morality is not ques¬ tioned. All these inconsistencies as regards the moral status of various kinds of gambling or dishonest speculation arise from our 59
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