THE NATURAL DECAY OF BUSINESS ENTERPRISE
Broadly, the machine discipline acta to disintegrate the institutional heritage, of all degrees of antiquity and authenticity — whether it be the institutions that embody the principles of natural liberty or those that comprise the residue of more archaic principles of conduct still current in civilized life. It thereby cuts away that ground of law and order on which business enterprise is founded. The further cultural bearing of this disintegration of the received order is no doubt sufficiently serious and far-reaching, but it does not directly concern the present inquiry. It comes in question here only in so far as such a deterioration of the genera! cultural tissues involves a set-back to the continued vigor of business enterprise. But the future of business enterprise is boimd up with the future of civilization, since the cultural scheme is, after all, a single one, comprising many interlocking elements, no one of which can be greatly disturbed without disturbing the working of all the rest.
In its bearing on the question in hand, the
NATURAL DECAY OP BUSINESS ENTEBPEI8E 375
"social problem" at large presents this singular situation. The growth of business enterprise rests on the machine technology as its material foundation. The machine industry is indispensable to it; it cannot get along without the machine process. But the discipline of the machine process cuts away the spiritual, institutional foundations of business enterprise ; the machine industry is incompatible with its continued growth ; it cannot, in the long run, get along with the machine process. In their , struggle against the cultural effects of the machine process, therefore, business principles cannot win m_the long run; since an