The immortal work done by Descartes, Newton and Leibnitz was to discover
powerful methods for mathematics—the only fit language for expressing the
laws of nature.
Human Engineering will be the science by which the great social problems
will be solved. For the first time since the first day of man, humanity
will really understand its own nature and status; and will learn to direct
scientifically the living and the non-living forces for construction,
avoiding unnecessary destruction and waste.
It may seem strange but it is true that the time-binding exponential
powers, called humans, do not die—their bodies die but their achievements
live forever—a permanent source of power. All of our precious
possessions—science, acquired by experience, accumulated wealth in all
fields of life—are kinetic and potential use-values created and left by
by-gone generations; they are humanity’s treasures produced mainly in the
past, and conserved for our use, by that peculiar function or power of man
for the binding of time. That the natural trend of life and the progress
of the development of this treasury is so often checked, turned from its
natural course, or set back, is due to ignorance of human nature, to
metaphysical speculation and sophistry. Those who, with or without
intention, keep the rate of humanity’s mental advancement down to that of
an arithmetic progression are the real enemies of society; for they keep
the life-regulating “sciences” and institutions far behind the gallop of
life itself. The consequence is periodic social violence—wars and
revolutions.
Let us carry the analysis of potential and kinetic use-values a little
further. All potential use-values left to us by the dead are temporal and
differ in utility. Many potential use-values are found in museums and have
very limited value to-day in practical life. On the other hand some roads
or water-ways built by the ancients have use-value to-day; and an almost
endless list of modern potential use-values have or will have use-values
for a long time to come, such as buildings, improved lands, railroad
tracks, certain machines or tools; the use-value of some such items of
material wealth will last for more than one generation. Kinetic use-values
are permanent in their character, for, though they may become antiquated,
they yet serve as the foundation for the developments that supersede them,
and so they continue to live in that to which they lead.
I would draw attention at this point to one of the most important kinetic
and potential use-values produced by humanity—the invention of the steam
engine. Through this invention, humanity has been able to avail itself,
not only of the living fruits of dead men’s toil, but also of the
inconceivably vast amounts of solar energy and time bound up in the growth
of vegetable life and conserved for use in the form of coal and other
fuels of vegetable origin. This invention has revolutionized our life in
countless directions. To be brief, I will analyse only the most salient
effects. Human Engineering has never existed except in the most embryonic
form. In remote antiquity the conception and knowledge of natural law was
wholly absent or exceedingly vague. Before the invention of the steam
engine, people depended mainly upon human powers—that is, upon “living
powers”—the powers of living men, and the living fruits of the labor of
the dead. Even then there were manifold complications.
The invention of the steam engine released for human use a new power of
tremendous magnitude—the stored-up power of solar energy and ages of time.
But we must not fail to note carefully that we to-day are enabled to use
this immense new power of bound-up solar energy and time by a human
invention, a product of the dead.
The full significance of the last statement requires reflection. The now
dead inventor of the steam engine could not have produced his ingenious
invention except by using the living powers of other dead men—except by
using the material and spiritual or mental wealth created by those who had
gone before. In the inventor’s intellectual equipment there was actively
present the kinetic use-value of “bound-up-time,” enabling him to discover
the laws of heat, water, and steam; and he employed both the potential and
kinetic use-values of mechanical instruments, methods of work, and
scientific knowledge of his time and generation—use-values of wealth
created by the genius and toil of by-gone generations. This invention was
not produced, let us say 6000 years ago, because civilization was not then
sufficiently advanced: mathematically considered, the production of this
great use-value had to await all the accumulated work of six thousand
years of human ingenuity and human labor. So, if we choose, the steam
engine may be considered a kinetic use-value in which the factor of time
is equal to something like 6000 years, or let us say roughly 200
generations.
It is obvious that, in one life time, even a genius of the highest order,
could not, in aboriginal conditions, have invented and built a steam
engine, when everything, even iron, was unknown. Of course if the same
inventor could have had a life of several thousands of years and could
have consecutively followed up all the processes, unhampered by the
prejudices of those days, and been able to make all of these inventions by
himself, he would represent in himself all the progress of civilization.
By this illustration we see the profound meaning of the words—the living
powers of the dead; we see the grave importance in human life of the
factor TIME; we behold the significance of the time-binding capacity of
man. The steam engine is to be seen anew, as in the main the accumulated
production of dead-men’s work. The life of one generation is short, and
were it not for our human capacity to inherit the material and spiritual
fruit of dead men’s toil, to augment it a little in the brief span of our
own lives, and to transmit it to posterity, the process of civilization
would not be possible and our present estate would be that of aboriginal
man. Civilization is a creature, its creator is the time-binding power of
man. Animals have it not, because they belong to a lower type or dimension
of life.
Sophistry avails nothing here; a child, left in the woods, would be and
remain a savage, matching his wits with gorillas. He becomes a civilized
man only by the accumulation of, and acquaintance with dead men’s work;
for then and only then can he start where the preceding generation left
off. This capacity is peculiar to men; the fact can not be repeated too
often.
It is untrue to say that _A_ started his life aided exclusively by the
achievements of (say) his father, for his father’s achievements depended
on the achievements of _his_ immediate predecessors; and so on all the way
back through the life of humanity. This fact, of supreme ethical
importance, applies to _all_ of us; none of us may speak or act as if the
material or spiritual wealth we have were produced by us; for, if we be
not stupid, we must see that what we call _our_ wealth, _our_
civilization, everything we use or enjoy, is in the main the product of
the labor of men now dead, some of them slaves, some of them “owners” of
slaves. The metal spoon or the knife which we use daily is a product of
the work of many generations, including those who discovered the metal and
the use of it, and the utility of the spoon.
And here arises a most important question: Since the wealth of the world
is in the main the free gift of the past—the fruit of the labor of the
dead—to whom does it of right belong? The question can not be evaded. Is
the existing monopoly of the great inherited treasures produced by dead
men’s toil a normal and natural evolution?
Or is it an artificial status imposed by the few upon the many? Such is
the crux of the modern controversy.
It is generally known that the invention of the steam engine and other
combustion engines which release sun-power for mechanical use, has
revolutionized the economic system; for the building of engines in the
scale of modern needs, it is necessary to concentrate a great number of
living men in one place, to build factories, to set up machines used in
producing the engines, and all this requires the use of vast amounts of
money. That is why this era is called the capitalistic era. But it is
necessary to stop here and analyse the factors of value in the engine to
be made and in the money used for the purpose of making use of the
stored-up energies of the sun. We have found that the major part of the
engine and all factors connected with its production are the combined
power of dead men’s labor. We have found that wealth or capital and its
symbol, money, are also, in the main, the bound-up power of dead men’s
labor; so that the only way to obtain the benefit in the release of
sun-power, is by using the product of the toil of the dead. It is further
obvious that only the men or organizations that are able to concentrate
the largest amounts of money, representing the work of the dead, can have
the fullest use of the stored-up energies of time and the ancient sun.
Thus the monopoly of the stored-up energies of the sun arises from
monopolizing the accumulated fruits of dead men’s toil. These problems
will, in the future, be the concern of the science and art of Human
Engineering.
Let us glance briefly at the problems from another angle. The power
developed in the combustion of one pound of coal is theoretically equal to
11,580,000 foot pounds. But by our imperfect methods of utilization, not
more than 1,500,000 foot pounds are made available. This is about the
amount of physical power exerted by a man of ordinary strength during a
day’s work. Hence 300 pounds of coal will represent the labor of a man for
a year. The current production of coal in the world is about 500,000,000
tons (1906). If we suppose that only half of this coal goes for mechanical
use, this will give us approximately the number as 1,600,000,000
man-powers that are producers but not consumers.
Let us take a still broader view of resources; we have approximately
1,600,000,000 living human beings (all censuses available between 1902 and
1906); a wealth of approximately $357,000,000,000 (_Social Progress_,
1906, page 221) which in our analysis is dead men’s work; and sun-power
equal, in work, to the work of our whole living population, or equal to
1,600,000,000 sun man-powers. Taking, for simplicity’s sake, $35.70 as the
average living expenses per annum for each one of the _world’s_
population, we will have:
(1) 1,600,000,000 living men.
(2) 10,000,000,000 living man-powers of the dead.
(3) 1,600,000,000 sun man-powers.
Such classification needs a reflection: man is intrinsically an increasing
exponential power and always produces two use-values—the potential and the
kinetic. All living men have in some degree this type of power; _they are
able to direct and use basic powers_.
So we see that this world is really populated to-day by three different
populations, all of them dynamic and active: to wit, 1,600,000,000 living
men; 10,000,000,000 living man-powers of the dead; 1,600,000,000 sun
man-powers.
Thus it is obvious beyond any argument, _that this additional producing
but not consuming_ population, has been produced mainly by the work of all
our past generations. It is said “mainly” because, if we were the first
generation, we would be just aboriginal savages having nothing and
progressing very slowly. The reason why we progress very rapidly, in this
stage of civilization, is explained very clearly by the mathematical law
of a geometrical progression, with an ever increasing number of terms, the
magnitude of the terms increasing more rapidly all the time.(11)
This fact is the reason why the old unscientific and artificial social
system requires and must undergo profound transformation. Human progress,
in many directions, is so far advanced that social institutions can not
much longer continue to lag so far behind. Static ethics, static
jurisprudence, static economics, and the rest must become dynamic; if they
do not continue to progress peacefully in accordance with the law of the
progress of science, they will be forced by violent readjustments,
recurring with ever increasing frequency.
Here we have a problem of very high importance and enormous magnitude. To
serve 1,600,000,000 living men, we have 11,600,000,000 dead man-powers and
all the sun man-powers—SEVEN SERVANTS TO EACH LIVING MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD
included. It looks like the millennium. It would be so if we but used all
this power in a constructive way, eliminating waste and controversy and
all those factors which hamper production and progress. The present
economic system does not realize even the beginning of the magnitude of
this truth and the tremendous results which are to be achieved through the
adjustment of it. The problem will be solved by Human Engineering, for
this will establish the right understanding of values and will show how to
manage world problems scientifically; it will give a scientific foundation
to Political Economy and transform so-called “scientific shop management”
into genuine “scientific world management.”(12)
There is a chasm between “Capital” and “Labor,” but nature does not know
“Capital” or “Labor” at all. Nature knows only matter, energy, “space,”
“time,” potential and kinetic use-values, forces in all their direct and
indirect expression, the energies of living men, living powers of dead
men, and the bound-up powers of Time and the ancient Sun. Nature made man
an increasing exponential function of time, a time-binder, a power able to
transform and direct basic powers. Sometimes we hypocritically like to
delude ourselves, if our delusions are agreeable—and profitable. We call
human work “manual labor” and we pretend that we need the laborer for his
muscular service, but when we thus speak, we are thoughtless, stupid, or
insincere. What we look for in the worker is his _control_ of his muscles;
mechanical work is or can be replaced almost entirely by machinery. What
we will never be able to replace by machinery is a Man, because man
belongs to the level of a dimension above machinery. Engine-power, sun
man-power, and capital—mainly the work of the dead—are inanimate; they
become productive only when quickened by the time-binding energies of
living men and women. Then only are the results proportional to the ever
growing magnitude of exponential power. In nature’s economy the
time-binders are the intelligent forces. There is none else known to us,
and from the engineer’s point of view, Edison and the simplest laborer,
Smith or Jones, are basically the same; their powers or capacities are
exponential, and, though differing in degree, are the same in kind. This
may seem optimistic but all engineers are optimists. They deal only with
fact and truth. If they make mistakes, if their bridges break down, then,
no matter how clever their sophistry, they are adjudged criminal. Like
severity must be made the rule and practice toward all those who control
the institutions and great affairs of human society. Periodical
break-downs must be prevented. The engineers of human society must be held
responsible, as the bridge engineer is held to-day.
Things are often simpler than they appear at the first glance. There may
be fire and plenty of coal in a stove, yet no heat; the fire does not burn
well; an engineer will remove the natural causes of obstruction of the
natural process; even such a simple thing as the removal of ashes may
solve the problem. It seems simple enough. The truth is often clear and
simple, if only it be not obscured and complicated by sophistry.
“Capitalistic” reasoning and “Socialistic” reasoning—Nature does not know
such things. Nature has only one “reasoning” in all its functions. Our
falsifying of nature’s laws makes the controversy. Socialism exists as an
_ism_ because Capitalism exists as an _ism_; the clash is only an
expression of the eternal law of action and reaction.
We are living in a world of wealth, a world enriched by many generations
of dead men’s toil; between the lust of the one to _keep_ and the lust of
others to _get_, there is little to choose; such contentions of lust
against lust are _sub_-human—animalistic; such ethics is zoological
ethics—the righteousness of tooth and claw; below the human dimensions of
life, utterly unworthy of the creative energy—the time-binding capacity—of
humanity. Socialism feels keenly and sees dimly that human affairs are not
conducted in conformity with natural laws. Capitalism neither sees it nor
keenly feels it. Neither the one nor the other stops to investigate
natural laws—nature’s laws—laws of human nature—scientifically. They both
of them use the same speculative methods in their arguments, and there can
be no issue. Against one old-fashioned, speculative argument, there is
always a speculative answer. They both speak about the truth, but their
methods can not find the truth nor their language express it. They speak
of “justice,” “right” and so forth, not knowing that their conceptions of
those terms are based on a wrong understanding of values. There is one and
but one remedy, and that remedy consists in applying scientific method to
the study of the subject. Sound reasoning, once introduced, will overrun
humanity as the fields turn green in the spring; it will eliminate the
waste of energy in controversies; it will attract all forces toward
construction and the exploitation of nature for the common weal.
There are capitalists and capitalists; there are socialists and
socialists. Among the capitalists there are those who want wealth—mainly
the fruit of dead men’s toil—for themselves. Among the socialists there
are those—the orthodox socialists—who seek to disperse it. The former do
not perceive that the product of the labor of the dead is itself dead if
not quickened by the energies of living men. The orthodox socialists do
not perceive the tremendous benefits that accrue to mankind from the
accumulation of wealth, if _rightly used_.
Whether we be capitalists or socialists or neither, we must learn that to
prey upon the treasury left by the dead is to live, not the life of a
human being, but that of a _ghoul_. Legalistic title—documentary
ownership—does not alter the fact. Neither does lust for the same.
When we have acquired the just conception of what a human being is we
shall get away from the Roman conception according to which a human being
is _instrumentum vocale_; an animal, _instrumentum semivocale_: and a
tool, _instrumentum mutum_. To regard human beings as tools—as
instruments—for the use of other human beings is not only unscientific but
it is repugnant, stupid and short sighted. Tools are made by man but have
not the autonomy of their maker—they have not man’s time-binding capacity
for initiation, for self-direction, and self-improvement In their own
nature, tools, instruments, machines belong to a dimension far lower than
that of man.
Talk of dimensions or dimensionality is by no means theoretical rubbish.
The right understanding of dimensions is of life-and-death importance in
practical life. The intermixing of dimensions leads to wrong conclusions
in our thought and wrong conclusions lead to disasters.
Consider the classes of life as representing three dimensions (as
explained in an earlier chapter), then human production belongs
essentially to the human or as I call it the third dimension. With the
base of (say) 5, we produce in the third dimension a result of 125 units,
and so when humans are paid but 25 units in accordance with the standards
of the second dimension (that of animals), humanity is deprived of the
benefit of 100 units of produced wealth. That is an illustration of what a
part dimensions play in practical life. The reflective reader may analyse
for himself what effect these same rules would have, if expressed and
applied in the human “time-binding” dimension, time being the supreme
test. The following table gives the visual shock:
1st Dimension 2nd Dimension 3rd Dimension
5 25 125
10 100 1,000
100 10,000 1,000,000
1,000 1,000,000 1,000,000,000
This explains why the intermixing of dimensions is the source of
tremendous evil.
Who can now assert that the problem of dimensions is one only of theory?
It is not even a question of limitation of mind, but it becomes a question
of limitation of eyesight, not to be able to see the overwhelming
differences between the laws of development of the first, second, and the
third dimension.
Dollars, or pounds sterling, or other units of money follow the same
rules: the strength and in fact the source of power of modern capitalism,
is found in just this difference in dimensions—in the difference between
what is given and what is taken, in the difference between what is earned
and what is “made.” The problem of dimensions is, therefore, a key which
unlocks the secrets of the power of capitalism and opens the door to a new
civilization where the understanding of dimensions will establish order
out of the chaos.
We have seen that kinetic and potential use-values, produced mainly by the
dead, are bound up in wealth, which is measured and symbolized by money.
This being true, it is obvious that money is a measure and symbol of
power, of work done, of bound-up time.
The _space_-binding _animal_ standard of miscivilization has brought us to
an impasse—a blind alley—for the simple physical reason that there is no
more space to “bind.” Practically all the habitable lands, and practically
all the natural resources, are already divided among private legalistic
owners. What hope is there for the ever increasing population?
But we have these 1,600,000,000 living men; 10,000,000,000 living
man-powers of the dead; and 1,600,000,000 sun man-powers: that is indeed a
tremendous power to PRODUCE WEALTH FOR ALL, IF WISELY DIRECTED, but to-day
it is ignorantly and shamefully misdirected, because human beings are not
treated in accordance with their nature as the time-binding class of life.
Much more is to be gained in exploiting nature aimfully, all the time,
with a full mobilization of our living, dead, and sun-powers, than by
exploiting man all the time and nature occasionally. Selfishness and
ignorance—is it these that prevent full mobilization of the producing
powers of the world?
Such as contribute most to human progress and human enlightenment—men like
Gutenberg, Copernicus, Newton, Leibnitz, Watts, Franklin, Mendeleieff,
Pasteur, Sklodowska-Curie, Edison, Steinmetz, Loeb, Dewey, Keyser,
Whitehead, Russell, Poincaré, William Benjamin Smith, Gibbs, Einstein, and
many others—consume no more bread than the simplest of their fellow
mortals. Indeed such men are often in want. How many a genius has perished
inarticulate because unable to stand the strain of social conditions where
animal standards prevail and “survival of the fittest” means, not survival
of the “fittest in time-binding capacity,” but survival of the strongest
in ruthlessness and guile—in space-binding competition!
Wealth is produced by those who work with hand or brain and by no others.
The great mass of the wealth of the world has been thus produced by
generations that have gone. We know that the greatest wealth
producers—immeasurably the greatest—have been and are scientific men,
discoverers and inventors. If an invention, in the course of a few years
after it is made, must become public property, then the wealth produced by
the _use_ of the invention should also become public property in the
course of a like period of years after it is thus produced. Against this
proposition no sophistry can avail.
One of the greatest powers of modern times is the Press; it commands the
resources of space and time; it affects in a thousand subtle ways the form
of our thoughts. It controls the exchange of news throughout the world.
Unfortunately the press is often controlled by exploiters of the “living
powers of the dead,” and so what is presented as news is frequently so
limited, colored and distorted by selfish interests as to be falsehood in
the guise of truth. Honest, independent papers are frequently starved by
selfish conspirators and forced to close down. Thus the press, which is
itself the product in the main of dead men’s toil, is made a means for the
deception and exploitation of the living. Indeed the bitter words of
Voltaire seem to be too true: “Since God created man in his own image, how
often has man endeavored to render similar service to God.” Those who want
to use such “God-like” powers to rule the world are modern Neros, who in
their wickedness and folly fancy themselves divine. To deceive, and
through deception, to exploit, rob and subjugate living men and women, and
to do it by prostituting the living powers created by the dead, is the
work, I will not say of men, but of _mad_ men, greedy, ignorant and blind.
What is the remedy? Revolution? Revolution is also mad. The only remedy is
enlightenment—knowledge, knowledge of nature, knowledge of human nature,
scientific education, science applied to all the affairs of man—the
science and art of Human Engineering.