THE PRACTICAL VOCATIONS
Medicine is the executive of the science of physiology, and the others,
on which it depends. The physician has a certain work to do, a certain
need to satisfy—the need of health, the alleviation of pain. In
endeavoring to satisfy this need he uses the sciences that underlie his
vocation and in turn promotes those sciences.
On the lower levels of agriculture and the industrial arts the same
holds true. Our physical necessities vociferously demand satisfaction.
They cannot wait. Men must have food or they perish. The agriculturist
supplies the food they need. But the spiritual view of life declares
that man, _while_ engaged in satisfying his material wants, shall in so
doing assert his spiritual nature. He is to hammer out his personality
on the anvil of his empirical necessities. Even as human beings do not
partake of food like animals, but indicate by the manner in which they
take it the superior worth of the being who is dependent on food, so
the agriculturist who raises the food should testify to his spiritual
character. He does so in part at least by his reaction on the sciences
which he applies, biology, chemistry, etc. The same holds good of the
industrial occupations. The work a man does should be the means of
promoting the development of his mental and æsthetic nature, and of his
will. The mental and æsthetic development is acquired by mastering
and reacting on the science and the art that enter into the trade. The
development of the will, the most important of all, depends on the
organic relations of the industrial workers among themselves and to
their chiefs.
This raises the problem of the right organization of “industrial
vocationalists” from the ethical point of view, and the following
questions present themselves: Shall the present division into the two
hostile camps of trade-unionists and employers continue? Or is it to be
regarded as a makeshift, perhaps necessary during the present period
of transition, but certainly untenable in the long run? Is the uniform
arrangement contemplated by Socialism desirable, the government of
every industry and indeed of every vocation by the representatives
of the community as a whole? Shall what is called coöperation be
adopted, that is, the formation of independent groups of workers on the
voluntary principle, associated for the purpose of equably dividing the
profits?
The three alternatives mentioned may be examined from various points of
view. Here we consider them from the ethical point of view. Assuming
that the ethical end of life is to be supreme, what kind of industrial
re-organization of society will be most in harmony with it? All three
plans are open to the ethical objection that they concentrate attention
on the material gain to be derived from the industry instead of on the
specific service which those who follow the industry as a vocation are
to render. Collective bargaining between unions and employers is after
all just bargaining. Socialism differs from trade-unionism not in the
object so much as in the means. Instead of securing for the workers a
larger share it would secure for them at once an approximately equal
share. Coöperation aims at the same result as Socialism by voluntary
association instead of by collective compulsion.
None of the three plans is ethically satisfying, and a fourth
arrangement should be contemplated. Its characteristics are the
following:
1. The idea of service to be pre-eminent instead of the gain, the wage
or salary to be apportioned as the means of sustaining the worker in
the best possible performance of the service.
2. The work done by the workers to be the means of developing them
mentally, æsthetically and volitionally, the educational features
therefore to be pre-eminent.
3. The industrial group to be transformed into a social sub-organism
(in the ethical sense a sub-organ of the larger organism of the
nation). By this is meant that the employers cease to be employers and
become functionaries, while each worker in his place and in his degree
likewise becomes a functionary. A common social service group will thus
be formed embracing the chiefs and the humbler workers. The chiefs
will be the executive and administrative functionaries, and will be
safeguarded in the due discharge of their proper functions. The workers
will not attempt to wrest from their chiefs as they do at present the
directive functions which properly belong to the latter (subject,
however, to due control). To each of the lesser functionaries in turn
will be assigned a sphere within which a relative independence would be
his.
The industry as a whole will be an _organ_ of the _corpus sociale_, and
this its character will be expressed in its government. The workers,
not required to render implicit obedience to rules imposed upon them
by masters and superintendents, will have a voice in the legislation
of the industry, in framing the policy of the industry, in electing
the chiefs, and in this way the development of the will, upon which
I lay the greatest stress, will be attained. The will of the worker,
at present fettered, will be liberated by the opportunity given it to
become enlightened and effectual.
I am not here describing a scheme which is to be immediately launched
in its completeness. I am illustrating the ethical principle as I see
it as applied to this particular vocation. I am endeavoring to show
how an occupation can be changed into a vocation. The constitutional
government of industries would be an intermediate stage between the
present autocratic form, in which more or less absolute power is vested
in the employer, and that organic constitution of industry which is
ethically desirable.
Thus far the following plans have been before the minds of social
reformers:
A. Competition, or life and death struggle.
B. Modified competition, or raising the plane of competition, as it is
called, that is, doing away with the more ferocious and unscrupulous
methods of competition.
C. Socialism.
D. Coöperation.
I propose to add (E) organization in the ethical sense. The word
“organization” is deplorably misused at present. It is commonly
employed as a synonym for aggregation, which is the very reverse of
organization. Thus “organized labor” really means aggregate labor,
labor acting _en masse_.
A further remark on the difference between industrial vocationalism as
outlined and Socialism may be of use in clarifying the main idea. The
relative independence of the social sub-organism is the salient point.
This kind of independence is based on the general conception underlying
my entire ethical philosophy, that the ethical quality resides in
uniqueness in distinctiveness, that ethical progress consists in
driving towards individualization in the sense of personalization.
This as opposed to those philosophies of life that see the ethical
quality in uniformity. Socialism is on the side of uniformity. It is
indeed an extreme expression of it. If sometimes it is urged that the
relative independence of the vocational groups might be recognized in
the socialistic state, the answer is that the tendency would be in the
opposite direction. And besides, the all-important question is to what
end the relative independence is to be used. Under socialism it would
be used for the purpose of increasing the quantity of valuable products
at the disposal of the community as a whole. From the ethical point of
view, the independence of the organic group would be used to insure
reciprocal relations, and by means of these the development mentally,
æsthetically and volitionally of _the producers_. The distinction
certainly is clear enough to its members, whichever way the reader may
incline.[78]
_The Historical Sciences_
I refer now briefly to historical science. The ethical aim of history
and its adjunct sciences is to redeem from oblivion as far as is
possible the past of the human race, its documents, its monuments,
the knowledge of its political adventures, its customs, laws and
institutions, its religious beliefs. In view of the lacunae in our
knowledge a complete revival of the past is impossible. We must
therefore principally seek to understand the ruling ideas that have
governed our ancestors, in the family, in the state, etc. The task of
the historian is to present these ideas as seen in the light of their
consequences, so as to help us revalue them from the point of view of
present experience and insight. The historian will thus enable us to
carry over from the past what is truly valuable, for the business we
have in hand.
There is just now a strong reaction against the kind of historical
science which deals principally with wars and the actions of princes or
of great leaders. Detailed attention is being given to the more obscure
life of the people. But it must be remembered that mere penetration
into the lower strata of bygone societies, the mere heaping up of facts
concerning mass movements, is as unprofitable as the more picturesque
recitals with which works on history were formerly adorned. The mass
movements and _the ideas_ which gave rise to them should be set clear
as far as possible; but without the evaluation and the revaluation, or
the ethical appraisement, the voluminous knowledge of details is merely
stupefying, and leaves us as much at sea as ever.[79]
Many men have read many books on history, and filled their minds with
information on subjects like the Protestant Reformation or the French
Revolution, without being in the least wiser themselves, or more fitted
to enlighten others in respect to the religious and ethical problems
which were involved in these great movements, and which still touch us
so closely today. As to the ordinary high school or college student,
what as a rule does he carry away from his study of past “history”?
FOOTNOTES:
[78] The vocational group must be independent because the expert
familiar with the conditions under which a service is performed is
specially competent to decide on the improvements required to render
the conditions more favorable to the development of human nature, the
service more adequate. The representatives of the collective community,
that is of the inexpert, outside mass (inexpert in respect to this
particular service) can never perform the same office.
With regard to the present state of industry the gigantic obstacle in
the way of improvement is obviously the subjection of the man to the
machine. The great hardship which the millions of factory operatives
suffer is not only the insufficient wage, it is the depersonalizing
effect produced by the substitution of the machine for the hand and the
blind subjection of adult workers to the arbitrary will of superiors.
(Compare what I have said on this subject in the chapter on “An Ethical
Programme of Social Reform” in _The World Crisis_.)
[79] Think of Mommsen, the author of a thousand treatises, whose
knowledge of the facts of Roman history was unsurpassed and probably
unequalled. Yet is his judgment on Cæsar or Cæsarism helpful as an
ethical appraisement?