Principles of western civilisation

x THE MODERN WORLD-CONFLICT 371

past, even without intentional fraud or coercion, is not a fair exchange. In a world in which the interests of the present are still in the ascendant in the economic process, and in which the strongest competitive forces, therefore, tend in the end to become more or less absolute, there cannot really be such a thing as fair exchange or free competition under existing conditions. We have, therefore, the two sides of the great antinomy in Western history once more slowly but clearly beginning to define themselves. On the one side we have, as we shall see in the next chapter, all the colossal forms and organisations through which the ascendency of the present is tending to express itself in the existing economic situation. On the other side we have the simple fact that amongst the advanced peoples it has already become ‘‘an ethical postulate that the distribution of wealth should aim at realising political justice.” As Professor Sidgwick points out, the resulting inequality of opportunity cannot, in consequence, be justified before the common social conscience. It fails to satisfy the current moral consciousness, to an ever-increasing degree, that one party should be ina position to profit not only by inevitable ignorance or distress, but by the actual disability or the enforced disadvantage of the other." A deep lying but gradually increasing dualism is, therefore, tending to develop itself in the existing economic condition of the world.

The tremendous reach of the principle just enunciated, as it begins to work in modern economic development, may not be immediately perceived. But that it is bound to carry us as far in the eco-

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