These men are the kind of individuals
which the existing economic system tends to encourage; and critics of
the existing system are denounced, because of the disastrous effect upon
individual initiative which would result from restricting individual
economic freedom.
But why should a man become an individual because he does what everybody
else does, only with more energy and success? The individuality so
acquired is merely that of one particle in a mass of similar particles.
Some particles are bigger than others and livelier; but from a
sufficient distance they all look alike; and in substance and meaning
they all are alike. Their individual activity and history do not make
them less alike. It merely makes them bigger or smaller, livelier or
more inert. Their distinction from their fellows is quantitative; the
unity of their various phases a matter of repetition; their independence
wholly comparative. Such men are associated with their fellows in the
pursuit of a common purpose, and they are divided from their fellows by
the energy and success with which that purpose is pursued.
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