and their further theories, systems, and alleged laws all rest on it. It
is called the Want Theory. Fully and fairly stated the common definition
of work, based on the want theory, is this: Work is an expenditure of
energy by the individual in order to obtain the means to gratify a
desire. This is almost universally believed. We accept it so fully that
one of the steps taken by missionaries to arouse industrial energy in
savages is to make them want things. As further manifestation of our
belief in it we hold that if people were supplied with anything they did
not work for, did not previously expend energy to get, they would, of
course, cease to work. On this ground, honestly and logically held,
every step toward free public provision for popular need has been
opposed.
Before going further in discussion of our common errors, let us lay down
the main thesis of this book, advanced as the true theory of work.
It is this: Work is an expenditure of energy by Society in the
fulfilment of its organic functions. It is performed by highly
specialised individuals under press of social energy, and is to them an
end in itself, a condition of their existence and their highest joy and
duty.
The difference between the two positions is best seen in studying
organic action in lower forms. Consider, for instance, the action of the
heart in our bodies. Here is a small muscular machine, which keeps up a
violent and continuous activity for some seventy years. Why? and How?
Why should this organ work so hard and so incessantly? My stomach gets
some rest—my legs get more—but this member is always at work. What want
does he gratify by it? Is he any better paid than leg or stomach?
If the heart were an individual, and were pulsating for pay, he might
conceivably stop when he got what he wanted. “Why continue to beat?” he
might naturally ask. “I have what I was beating for!” And if, further,
you supplied this independent creature with all it wanted, free, it
would quite naturally cease beating altogether.
But as an Organ, which is quite a different thing from an Individual,
the heart does not act on any such basis. It has been slowly developed
through long ages of physical evolution, to perform a function of _no
use to itself_, but of primal use to the body to which it belongs, the
body which made it, the body without which there would be no such thing
as a heart. This function being so absolutely essential, the heart is
fitted to beat steadily on from birth to death; when it ceases beating
the body goes out of business altogether.
Now a separate animal the size of a heart could not keep up any such
long-continued regular exercise, it could not furnish sufficient energy;
but the large body which needs a heart can run one, it has a supply of
energy on which all its organs draw. The work of a living organ is not
at cost of its own energy, but of the energy of the entire organism.
Society, as an organism, has a vast, a practically unlimited supply of
energy, and the human being, as a member of that society, is supplied
with it.
The discharge of this energy is so far from costing the individual
anything that, on the contrary, any prevention of his normal work causes
him acute suffering. And as in the physical body, each special organ, in
order that it may devote its entire life to the physical service, is by
the circulation of nutrition saved any necessity for caring for itself;
so in the social body, each man, in order that he may devote his entire
life to the social service, is similarly provided for by the
distribution of economic products; our social nutrition.
Here we are at once met by existing beliefs, loud-voiced. “Men are not
‘organs,’ they are conscious individuals. Men are not—oh! palpably
not—provided for by any such beneficial process of social distribution
of nourishment; each man must take care of himself or starve!”
The individual consciousness of men is not denied, it is that,
misconstrued, which has made these common social functions work so ill,
and hurt so in the working. To that same individual consciousness this
book is directed, urging reconsideration of the facts, readjustment of
the industrial activities. But however conscious, men are none the less
“organs,” their labours serve our common ends; not their own. It is not
that each man has some exact analogue in physiological type, like the
heart, but that each industry holds organic relations with all other
industries, and that the use and purpose of each depend on the others.
The need to be supplied is a social need, the growth to be attained is a
social growth, of no more value to an individual, detached, than beating
would be to a heart, detached. Work is an organic function,
incontrovertibly.
As to the lack of social provision of nourishment, this again is but an
error. The provision is there, the whole of society contributing to it;
the circulation is there, our food and other goods flowing merrily
across land and sea; but there is some trouble with the final
distribution of this nourishment to the workers, which will be
considered later. Admitting the imperfections, it remains true that the
social circulation is now in action—the shoemaker of Massachusetts
eating the beef of Nebraska, and the beef-raiser of Nebraska wearing the
shoes of Massachusetts.
No man could work, which is a social function, if he had at the same
time to “take care of himself,” which is an individual function. As a
worker in society, he is taken care of, but he does not do it himself.
To repeat our definition—normal human work is a discharge of social
energy along lines of special development. The social organism lives in
the fulfilment of its organic functions, that fulfilment is work; to
work is to take part in the vital processes of Society, to be socially
alive; not to work, not to take part in these vital processes, is to be
one of three things: First, mere dead matter, Waste; second, a Parasite,
active as a thief, passive as a pauper; or third, a Disease, of which in
time Society must die.
With the waste products of society we are painfully familiar, the great
army of defectives, people who cannot work, yet whom, as part of
ourself, we must support, a drag upon the Social resources. The active
parasite we know in his crude form, as the little thief, and are
beginning to detect in his highly developed form as the big thief. The
passive parasite we know also in his crude form as the idle poor, and
are beginning to suspect in the idle rich. But the disease is still
beyond our diagnosis, though many Societies have died of it, those
morbid processes engendered by the presence in the social body of any
matter not alive and healthily active.
These features of the abnormal working of Society come later. Let us now
study the evolution of Work.
The Universe as we know it is occupied in transmitting energy. The
amount seems inexhaustible and indestructible. It rolls on interminably,
discharging warmth and light into blank spaces; and, whenever worlds
have formed, getting tangled up in a thousand shapes and sputtering
mightily as it finds its complicated way out through them.
A living creature has an elaborate system of receiving and discharging
energy, more elaborate as the life-form grows higher.
Force in inorganic matter has a simple channel, varying the monotony by
occasional explosions. Force in the vegetable world is freer and learns
new tricks—building tall trees and flaming out in blossoms. Force in the
animal kingdom has wider range; these life-forms can do more things.
They have more ways to express energy, and more ways to receive it. With
special senses tuned to catch various vibrations, they respond to light,
heat, and sound, to touch, taste, and smell; their impressions are
varied and their expressions equally so.
Here enters Consciousness, with its extremes of Pleasure and Pain; the
director of action, but not its cause. This complex engine, receiving so
many impressions, transmitting so many expressions, must feel, because
it acts; must act, because it feels. An Action is a consciously directed
expression of energy. A Sensation is a consciously recorded impression
of energy. Both sensation and action, if normal, are pleasurable—the
conscious transmission of energy is joy.
The pleasure in sensation increases in proportion to the extent and
delicacy of the sensorium. The pleasure in action increases in
proportion to the extent and delicacy of the executive mechanism. Pain,
of course, is proportionate to pleasure at any stage; meaning only
abnormal use of the same nerves, but the higher the development of the
organism the greater its ability to avoid pain.
The course of evolution has been to develop more and more complicated
instruments for the transmission of energy. Society, as the highest
life-form, is the most exquisitely complex of all; it has a sensorium
far larger, and more subtly sensitive, and an executive apparatus
commensurate; it has a degree of consciousness highest of all, and a
proportional capacity for joy and ability to avoid pain.
This social transmission of energy is Work. The forces of the universe
flowing through humanity come in by all our highly cultivated powers of
perception, and come out in our beautiful profusion of creative
activities—in work. The conscious transmission of energy reaches in us a
transcendent height of pleasure by virtue of our co-ordinate action.
There is larger joy in “team-work” than in the individual play. The
pleasure of dancing in companies, or the rhythmic motions of a drill, is
not confined to those particular activities; but, in normal conditions,
inheres in all smoothly co-operate exercise. The reasons why we do not
feel it in those exercises we call work are not inherent, but purely
associative; or else due to accompanying conditions of a painful nature.
Normal conditions of human work require, first, that the worker shall be
well nourished physically and socially, well educated to his fullest
height of ability, and well-placed in the work he likes best and does
best—(these two being identical). A worker, so placed, is in no way
overtaxing his own energy, but is merely giving expression to the social
energy, and finds in that process an exhaustless joy. We are so used to
consider work as a drain upon the strength of the individual—and indeed
in our artificial conditions it so often is—that we may not at first
appreciate the nature of this fund of social energy.
Let us observe its development, comparing the power at the disposal of a
member of society with that of an individual animal. An individual
animal is a mechanism adapted to the performance of certain activities,
urged thereto by certain stimuli, and governed therein by certain
instincts, and, perhaps, concepts. The activities of the animal are
limited, of course, by his executive machinery; he has only the tools
that grow on him.
These are ingenious and reasonably effective, but their development is
slow, requiring many generations of heartless “elimination of the unfit”
to gradually evolve the fit. If his claws are not good enough, he dies,
those having somewhat better claws survive; slowly the claws improve. He
cannot in one lifetime invent and manufacture better claws, but has to
be tediously and expensively “selected,” the whole beast sacrificed to
the defective claw.
Further, his excellence is checked by the interaction of parts,—all his
tools being part of him, and modifying each other. The more things he
can do, the less perfectly he does them; the more perfectly he does a
thing, the fewer things he can do. The beaver, for instance, is a highly
developed builder, but he cannot run well, or climb trees. Where you
find the most perfect specialisation of an animal’s machinery to a
particular function, you find the creature practically helpless
otherwise—as the ant-eater. So we find the executive capacity of an
individual animal limited, first, by his body and its slow methods of
adaptation.
His stimuli are also limited. This small machine is kept going by its
own supply of nervous energy, replenished by food, sleep, air, and
water. It will run so long, and then must rest and be “fired up.”
Special excitants of fear, pain, or unusual hunger may temporarily
accelerate his activity, but he has then to rest the longer. His
executive capacity is thus limited, second, by his small nervous energy
and narrow range of stimulus.
It is further confined, thirdly, by the narrow circle of his instincts,
desires, or ideas, if he has them. The governing impulse is simple
race-preservation, mingled with the self-preserving instincts; egoism
and familism cover his range of interests. Hope, fear, desire,—all are
for self or family.
So we find in the individual animal, his efficiency is limited by (_a_)
his personal mechanism, (_b_) his personal nerve force, and (_c_) his
personal interests. For such an agent work—continuous expression of
energy—would indeed be difficult. But now examine the position of the
human being.
Man’s tools do not grow on him. He has been able to evolve improved
tools without sacrificing a thousand slow generations to breed them. He
adds to his executive ability, (_a_) the power of numbers, and of the
“relay race” (wild dogs have this), (_b_) the power of division of
labour, (ants and bees have this), (_c_) the tool, detachable and
exchangeable.
In this comes at once an enormous saving of energy. Where the mole has
to spend not only his immediate strength in digging, but his whole
racial tendency in being modified to digging, the man with a spade can
do far more work in proportion to his strength, and still be able to do
other things. The executive efficiency of the man is multiplied, first,
by association, again by division of labour, and again by the tool. The
tool being not a personal adjunct like the claw, but a separate thing,
usable by many, the efficiency is again increased by the exchange of
tools. It is multiplied, fourth, by the development of the tool into the
machine, and fifth, by the application to the machine of extra-personal
power, of the forces of nature direct. Thus where one man alone as a
separate naked animal could accomplish something equal to, say 5: as a
member of society his efficiency is squared by association = 25; cubed
by the division of labour = 125; raised to the fourth power by the tool
= 625; to the fifth, by the machine = 3125; and to the sixth, by the use
of natural forces = 15,625.
In view of even this much of our human efficiency, the exertion
requisite for a human creature to do his share of our human work is so
slight in proportion to our wealth of power that it is exquisitely
absurd for us to speak of it as an expense of energy. Where an
individual animal has to pour out his full stock of strength in hunting
his prey, or, if graminivorous, in wandering over great areas after
grass; man, collective, can produce and distribute food for a thousand
by the specialised services of ten men with machinery. The executive
efficiency of humanity is raised to such an enormous height that the
spectacle of human beings still spending their personal energy at long
hours of exhausting labour is an incredible paradox.
As far as power goes, one human being should be easily able to “pay for
his keep” for life in a year’s work or less. But we are by no means done
with the increase of efficiency. This five-times multiplied enginery of
ours would still be comparatively futile, if the governing agent, man,
had only the stimuli of the beast. The separate animal has his own
supply of cerebral energy. It is something. It enables him to
co-ordinate his forces, such as they are, and to undertake extreme
exertion when he has to, such as it is. He maintains this energy by
breathing, eating, and sleeping. Men can do these things too. Men, as
separate animals, have each his own supply of cerebral energy. But Man
has more.
Social energy is quite a different thing from individual energy. By as
much as the dynamic force of an elephant is greater than that of the
elephant’s bulk in monads, so is the dynamic force of a society greater
than that of the mere sum of its individual constituents,—and more.
Social energy has been accumulating in humanity from its birth. It is
not only that co-ordinate action allows the transmission of wider waves
of force than individual action, but that society in its organic
function continually stores force in material products, and so
establishes an ever enlarging magazine of power. This is where the
social body so aids and furthers the action of the social soul. Each
material object, so that it be a normal product, embodies and
continually transmits the force that made it.
We are supplied, by virtue of our social relation, with a large complex
brain area; the organ of social life. That great life we partake of in
using the social body, in the immediately effective tools, utensils, and
machines, and necessary material conveniences of life; but even more as
we have access to the great social battery, the work of art. A human
brain has not only the existent sum of social energy to draw on, but the
stored energy of all the past.
The Artist, highly specialised receiver and transmitter, gathers immense
waves of force, concentrates and embodies them, and those around and
coming after have permanent access to the power that moved him. This is
perhaps clearest in the art of literature; where the thought and feeling
of all time stand bottled on our shelves, always feeding, never
exhausted. In music and painting and sculpture—in all arts—we have forms
of the same beautiful social process.
Thus the human brain receives as stimulus such floods of force, such
soundless seas of force, that it is practically unlimited. The measure
of social stimulus has yet to be found. It passed the using point long
ago, and has never stopped growing. The human brain, rightly supplied
with social stimulus, is so fed, so fired, so thrilled and filled with
energy, that it suffers agony if denied free discharge. That free
discharge is social service, the splendid variety and complexity of
achievement in which all may find full exercise of this tremendous
power, and in that exercise find pride, peace, and joy, express love,
satisfy ambition, realise human life.
Thus with our endless multiplication of executive efficiency comes a
similarly endless multiplication of stimulus—yet still we hear this
prehistoric claim that a man will not exert himself—unless he has to!
The point is, that he does have to—by virtue of being human; that it is
not so much “exertion” as it is relief. To discharge an overpressure of
energy is not “exertion” exactly.
Further yet: the beast, behind his little foot-power engine, with the
force furnished by gobbled rabbit or patch of grass, had no governing
scheme of life wherewith to direct his small activities, save the basic
animal instincts of self-preservation and reproduction—egoism and
familism. Man,—Citizen, Patriot, Hero,—man has for governing plan of
action, the distinctive instincts of humanity,—the social. The animal
will do much for its own life, the mother will do much for her own
young; but man will do more for his City, his State, his Country, and
his World.
This is not a sentimental claim for what he might do, but a plain
historic reference to what he has done. Athenian, Roman, Carthaginian,
Frenchman, German, or Englishman—latest of all, American. True, our
recognition of social duty has been narrow; consisting principally in
“dying for one’s country”; but that we have done with splendid heights
of heroism, and no beast can do so much.
The bee and ant? Yes, of course, they too are social animals, of very
high intelligence. And they, be it noted, have not this shameful fallacy
that no one will exert himself “unless he has to,” unless he “wants”
something. With much of the same collectivism, though sharply limited as
we have seen by the predominant femininity, with much of the same
specialisation, with a better developed sense of common interest than we
have, the ant and bee are types of contented and ceaseless industry. Yet
they have to do it all “by hand,” they have no extra-personal tools and
machinery, they have no horse-power, wind- or water-power, steam power,
or electric power. They have no great reservoir of energy in Literature
and Art. And they have no wider scheme of life than a sublimated
ultra-organised motherhood—everything else is subsidiary to that
function.
If humanity were perfectly healthy; if our mechanical efficiency were
rightly placed and fully used; if our social energy were accessible to
all, and our social instincts freely developed, we should see each young
human being coming eagerly forward to do his share of the world’s work,
not under the action of personal desire—or fear of penalty—but simply
_to relieve the pressure_! So irresistible is our growth in this
direction that even under all our artificial hindrances, against the
combined resistance of religion, tradition, superstition, habit, custom,
education, and condition, still the normal child does want to work,
tries to work, and in some cases bursts through the whole cordon of
opposition and does the work he is made for, though it cost him his
life.
We see this conspicuously in the latest and most highly specialised
forms of work, as the arts, sciences, and most developed professions.
Naturally the more delicately special an organ is the more imperative is
its doing its own kind of work, and no other. So we have seen again and
again the people we call “great,” they having more social energy at
command than others, pushing forward over all obstacles to do their
particular kind of work, not only without regard to the pay, which they
did not get, but without regard to the punishment, which they did get.
We have tried to account for this by assuming that the “desire” which
actuated them was a desire for fame. We are so sure that it must be a
desire of some sort! Why is it so difficult to admit the presence of
radiating energy in a live creature? We can see it plainly enough in
“mere matter.”
Radium does not necessarily want something because it so continually
does something.
To feel a lack—to see a desired supply—to exert one’s energy to obtain
the supply and so cease to lack, is a natural process of action, but not
the only one. Organic action differs here from individual action.
The Teacher is an exquisitely developed social functionary, wholly a
transmitter, using various arts and sciences to help him, but his own
art involving the subtlest psychological skill. When this temperament is
charged with most radical truths, when the teaching is a religion,—then
we have the great souls who have appeared again and again in history, so
charged with social energy that nothing, not difficulty, danger, death
itself, could stop them. They would teach and they did teach, to the
immense benefit of the society whose unconscious laws evolved them,
whose conscious laws destroyed them. The scientific discoverer has too
frequently shared the same fate; the inventor, the pioneer in any
change, has a hard time. “The Push” in Society is a place of honour, but
not an easy one.