What is Trade? Is it merely a way of making money? Then there is no
ethical basis for it. "The amount of money which is needed for a good
life," says Aristotle, "is not unlimited."
One concept is: Trade is something which belongs to me. It is that part
of the world's exchange which I can get under my personal control. It
is the balance between human industries and human needs which I hold
for my part of the world, and which others are continually trying to
wrest from me, and which I must keep by all means, fair or foul.
Competition is the battle of the strongest, the quickest, the meanest! I
must know tricks. I must get in with people, get hold of some sort of
pull, learn to dissemble, to flatter, manipulate, hedge, dodge. Success
is a matter of being sly. Anything is allowable which comes out ahead,
which adds to the dollar-pile, or which makes the loudest
advertising noise!
To buy at the least, and sell at the most, regardless of the conditions
under which least and most are attained--the man who enters life with
this idea of trade in his mind might just as well be born a shark and
live to prey.
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