Eddy, Arthur Jerome: The new competition: an examination of the conditions underlying the radical change that is taking place in the commercial and industrial world ; the change from a competitive to a cooperative basis (New York [u.a.], 1912)

VANISHING INDUSTRIES

225

Given economic conditions productive of poverty and
misery, only the thorough-going pessimist has the right to
say they cannot be helped, and—whether we realize it or
not—most of us are optimists, our lives are ordered upon
the conviction that things which are wrong not only can be,
but will be helped.
To return to the question in cooperation presented by
the four classes of industries.

IV
With group A the problem is to devise a plan of co-
operation that will eliminate the waste of competition and
assure the plants less advantageously situated the work they
can do economically and that they are normally entitled to
do by reason of their location. The problem is not how to
most speedily dispose of the weaker to the end that the
larger—and, logically, perhaps one large one—shall control
the trade; that might result for a time in a fractional sav-
ing on each unit of product, but in the end it would mean
a very great loss to the community and disaster to many
localities.
With group B the problem is more difficult. Many of
the losing plants may have to go, it may even be difficult to
preserve all those that are neither losing nor making, but
with every man in the business before him the expert will
think long and seriously before he says to this man or that
man, “I can do nothing for you or the town the prosperity
of which depends upon the keeping open of your factory.”
Unsympathetic competitors, heartless theorists and
economists may say, “What’s the use of trying to keep him
alive ? He can’t make any money where he is located.”
It may be true that, under the relentless conditions of
the old competition, he can make no money and must,