_Labor defined._—Exertion of any kind for meeting individual wants we call
labor, whether it simply gathers food from the forest, or contrives the
most intricate machinery for satisfying wants that may take years to grow.
Exertion that has no end beyond itself, no matter how severe it may be, we
call play, and consider it important in public welfare only as it aids in
health and morals. Labor is separated, too, from all exertions to destroy
or injure the welfare of others, if we can see their object. Any person
claiming to labor professes to have given his exertions for the
satisfaction of somebody’s wants without doing violence to the welfare of
others in the community. Whenever we do not assume this we concede a state
of war, violence and destruction taking the place of production and
accumulation. These may require exertions usually classed with labor; but
are punished instead of being rewarded, unless we can establish their
final advantage in a larger welfare for humanity, or in defense of
society.
_Productive labor._—The various classifications of labor serve merely to
call attention to peculiar relations implied in the results. If exertion
results in giving additional wealth, or power to produce wealth, it is
called productive labor; but if it contributes only to immediate comfort
or pleasure or safety it is called unproductive. The distinction is useful
so far as it enables us to be prudent in adjusting energies to meet real
wants. All labor is maintained by the product of exertions. Any labor
expended without a product must be provided for by an increased product
from some other form of labor. A farmer may sustain life upon the food he
raises; but the wife who makes his house a home cannot live on the product
of her labors. She may add to the value of some products directly, as in
turning milk into butter, and raw materials into palatable food; but her
chief energy may be in getting satisfaction for the household out of
materials gained by her husband. Both are essential to the welfare of
either, and prudence requires a proper adjustment between them. A force of
physicians may be needed to keep a community in working condition; but if
a whole community tried to live as doctors some other community must
furnish the material wealth to sustain them.
Any increase of labor upon material products, either directly or
indirectly, may increase ability to meet future wants, while increase of
labor upon present uses of wealth may diminish ability for the future. The
wealth of a community is the product of all the labors that contribute to
make material nature useful. This classification is important in studying
the question of productive consumption of wealth, but does not decide
which gives best results. It is a serious error to assume that the worker,
whose labor is directly applied to materials, gives to our wealth all its
value. If several men are building a house, one may contribute as much to
the building by cooking for the rest as if he worked in turn in the
construction. In the same way all the household, if well ordered, aid
toward the result of their united labors. The physician who shortens the
illness of a farmer contributes his share toward raising the farmer’s
crop. The lawyer who makes property safer, and the minister who gives
stronger motives for exertion, are sharers in the force that brings the
product.
_Physical, mental, moral labor._—The classification of labor according to
the powers employed serves to call attention to the wide range of
exertions rightly classed as labor. If the exertion is chiefly muscular,
labor of hands, shoulders, legs or any part of the body, it is properly
called physical. If the main effort is that of the intellect in planning,
inventing, contriving ways and means, or in remembering, counting or
thinking of any kind, it is just as truly labor, but mental. If the chief
exertion is in the good will that resists temptations, guards interests,
controls violence and folly, secures order and devises liberal things for
society, the labor is moral. Moral labor is often recognized in wages,
faithfulness being more important in some services than in others, and
paid for. Mechanical devices for promoting honesty or watchfulness may
save, in part, moral labor.
This view of labor helps us to see the wide range of efforts that unite in
production of wealth, since all the energies of a man may be employed in
his work. The successful farmer is one who makes the most of all his
abilities—his muscles, his mind and his heart—and his hard work is far
from being confined to his hands. The three kinds of labor are combined in
some proportion in every life, but the best and most productive life his
most room for hard thinking and self-control.
_Operative, executive, speculative labor._—In the advancing complexity of
society a still more important classification of labor is apparent. If a
man’s effort of any kind is simply to follow directions in an established
routine, it is called operative labor, and the laborer becomes an
operative. He works usually by the day, hour or piece, under a foreman or
overseer. Beyond the task set for him, he has no thought nor will. Over
him is a director—the foreman, overseer, contractor or boss—whose chief
effort is to carry forward to completion some plan committed to him as a
trust. The foreman’s labor is largely mental and moral in adjusting tasks
and keeping the operatives, “the hands,” well employed. This is well named
executive labor, and requires peculiar abilities and character.
Still farther away from the mere task is the effort that devises the plan;
adjusts part to part, decides upon materials suitable for each part,
establishes the ideal of excellence for every part and for the whole, and
foresees its actual uses. Invention of every kind illustrates the exertion
of foresight in planning, but such exertion is not confined to technical
invention. The farmer who lies awake nights to plan his year’s work so
that he may have the largest returns for his undertakings in marketable
products, gives the same kind of effort as the inventor. A good name for
this is speculative labor,—an exertion to foresee and provide for future
needs of society.
In much of farm life all these are mingled: the same man devises the plan,
executes his own ideas, and performs the tasks himself. But every one
realizes the difference of success growing out of the planning. Many a
good man needs to follow another’s plans, and not a few “work better for
others than they can for themselves.” In some great undertakings the
projector and planner, the contractor and overseer and the worker of
details are necessarily separated. This may be well illustrated in the
construction of a great building, for which an architect gives all
attention to a plan, and may require a considerable force of assistants
and draftsmen to embody his ideas on paper; then contractors, one or
several, secure material, employ men and direct them in placing materials
in form and combination to suit the plans; but a host of workmen move as
directed at the will of a foreman to pile brick, mortar, stone, iron or
timber according to the plan. The labor of the architect makes possible
the entire structure—makes the work for all that enter into his labors.
This classification into speculative, executive and operative labor helps
to a fair estimate in sharing the proceeds of combined labors, and gives a
proper importance to the inventive and foreseeing energy which causes the
growth of civilization. _That form of exertion which has done most to meet
the world’s wants is speculative labor._
_Invention in farming._—A capital illustration of speculative labor,
productive in the highest degree, is the invention of reaping machinery.
The inventor has gained riches by his contrivance, but the world has
gained far more by his foresight and ingenuity. Similar energy has been
put into all labor-saving machinery, and still plays an important part in
devising the best uses for it.
Every farmer has a similar need of planning for every field he plows.
There is a certain draft for each horse, a certain speed for the plow, a
certain adjustment of harness to the team, which gives a full return for
the force employed. A failure to find this causes waste. All the effort of
scientific research into causes and conditions of growth or disease of
plants and animals is speculative labor, out of which the next advance of
agriculture must come. The mere operative power of a laborer can be
supplanted by brute force or by machinery, but nothing can ever supplant
the intelligent foresight that invents, plans and devises the end to be
reached, and the ways and the means for reaching it.
The very foundation of any success in farming is clear foresight and
distinct planning for a succession of crops, each to be tended, harvested,
stored and marketed in the very nick of time. The best energy of every
farmer is properly given to finding what crop to raise, how and when to
have it ready for the world that is going to need it. He best meets his
own daily wants when “Mr. Contrivance” stands by him in all his efforts.
This contrivance is the chief exertion of a successful farmer’s life.