proving this, even in some immediate result of a strong mental
impression in unconscious bodily motion; as shown in studies among
school children. As the brain develops it has increasing capacity to
receive impressions, to retain and to arrange impressions; but
nevertheless sometime that mass of impressions must come out in
commensurate action, else disease ensues. The human brain, socially
developed, and socially stimulated, has great power of expression; that
expression is in work, and work is in Production and Distribution. The
productivity of the human race, even with its past and present checks
and perversions, is the wonder of the ages. Guaranteed the swift and
easy satisfaction of those “wants” our economists build so much on, the
steady increase of impressed energy has resulted in as steady an
increase of expressed energy, necessarily.
Man receives stimulus from a thousand sources. Since we made mental
impressions permanent and exchangeable “in book form,” knowledge and
emotion bottled, preserved, and distributed broadcast; there is
practically no limit to human stimuli; and, since with this increasing
stimulus we have steadily reduced the difficulties of execution, our
real problem is, how to provide right outlets for the productive energy
of humanity. This normal increase of power and execution we have managed
to check, however, quite materially. We have gravely interfered with the
natural distribution of stimulus up to the present time; but now our
rapid multiplication of free school and free library, with similar
tendencies in other educational and recreative lines, is producing its
natural result in increased energy.
Even with what stimulus was open to us, our production should have been
very great; but we have interfered with that also, in more ways than
one. The principal obstacle here is the basic error of the Want theory.
Holding that man works only to satisfy desire,—_i. e._, produces merely
to consume,—we prostitute our share of the social energy to a factitious
personal advantage; and try to govern the productive processes of
society by the dictates of self-interest. Here you have a factory in
which a hundred men turn out ten hundred pairs of shoes a day. What for?
Why, for the feet of ten hundred people, of course—to shoe the world.
“Not so,” they protest. “We are making these shoes for ourselves.” “But
you cannot wear ten pairs of shoes a day, my man!” “No, but I only do
this work for the pay—and I can easily consume the pay for ten pair of
shoes a day.”
This poor man never understands his position as a social functionary
with all its honour and pleasure. The Ego concept and the Want theory
becloud his mind. Even his personal pride in his personal work has
lowered since the machine made his work collective, and his mind failed
to keep pace with the machine, and make his joy and pride collective
too. His pleasure is only in what he gets back from society in return
for his labours, and he gets very little. As part of this same ancient
misconception of what work is, we find the incredibly multiplied
machinery of production “owned” by individuals; and manipulated by them
under the same befogging ideas that lead the workman to “limit his
output.”
Never were any of the gross and childish superstitions of remotest
savagery more injurious—or more ridiculous—than these rudimentary errors
under which our economic development so blindly labours. We have our
alleged “overproduction” on the one hand—though a full supply of the
good things of life is obtained by scarce one-tenth of the population of
the world; and we have the ensuing and even more colossal absurdity of
the restricted output—whether of the man who stints his day’s labour, or
the group of financiers who “corner” some social product, and say how
much the world shall have.
These muddy follies of our common mind—for if we did not all, or nearly
all, believe in these principles of action, we would not for a moment
allow such economic treason and misrule—together with allied fallacies
of a similar nature, most seriously interfere with production.
Nevertheless, as the laws of nature are somewhat stronger than our
evanescent misconceptions, we do see the tremendous increase in our
productivity; and, in favoured instances, its grandeur and delight. As
good an expression of this feeling as I know in literature is in George
Eliot’s poem of “Stradivarius.”
Here is a man, developing an extremely specialised line of production,
and clear of brain enough to see the joy and dignity of it.
“Antonio Stradivari has an eye
That winces at false work and loves the true,
With hand and arm that play upon the tool,
As willingly as any singing bird
Sets him to sing his morning roundelay
Because he likes to sing and likes the song.”
Our best known instances of normal or nearly normal production are found
in art and science. Here you have a product which the world recognises
as its own—not that of the individual maker. “He has given to the world”
such and such a picture, or statue; discovery in science or composition
in music; to this world-service we give some, though an imperfect,
honour; and we pity and even blame the man who “prostitutes his art” to
the level of “the pot-boiler.” Art is world-service, truly, but so is
manufacture or commerce. A man should no more prostitute his “trade”
than his “art.” It is as base to make a “pot-boiler” of your day’s work
as of a book or a picture. No soldier is more actually “serving his
country” in his occasional fighting, than is the workman in his
continual working. One’s country sometimes has to be “saved” in sudden
emergency, at considerable cost of immediate exertion and sacrifice; but
one’s country has to be kept alive all the time, at considerable cost of
unceasing labour and some sacrifice too. Our patriotism, which rushes
madly forward to “save the country” when it is in visible danger, and,
having saved it, proceeds to exploit it for personal advantage all the
rest of the time, is on a par with love for one’s family, which would
risk life to “save” it, from flood, or fire, or injurious attack, and
then mercilessly cheat it, starve it, keep it cold and dirty and
ignorant and sick and vicious—when not “in danger.” The danger to our
country from our general neglect and misuse, and our frequent positive
injury, is far greater than that of occasional war. We need a patriotism
that will operate all the time.
The human worker, whether a captain of industry or in the ranks, who
puts his personal safety and advantage before that of his country is
exactly the same traitor and coward that the officer or private in the
army would be who did the same thing. He does not know it, we do not
know it, therefore no odium attaches to these public offenders. But the
mischief they do is apparent in every branch of our economic processes.
We have seen that human production is checked in amount by our lack of
knowledge. It is injured in kind from the same cause. Normal production
has an evolution of its own. Follow the development of any one trade,
and you will see as natural a growth as in a physical organ, marred of
course by our errors, but there under all. Take the building trades as
an example. At the beginning we find primitive man enlarging a cave
somewhat, or, lacking that retreat, putting up some shelter of boughs to
screen him from the wind and rain, or spreading a hide for the same
purpose. The act, repeated, develops skill, and the mind, dwelling over
and over on the same problem, develops too, and sees better ways of
accomplishment. The shelter of hide becomes the teepee or wigwam, and,
cloth superseding leather, the tent in all its forms; but its growth is
limited by mechanical conditions. The shelter of boughs is more open to
improvement; and evolves slowly into hut, cabin, house. The materials
used depending on the environment, the Eskimo builds of ice, the
Chaldean of clay, and, slowly, by proof of superiority, stone was used
wherever found. The principle of specialisation acting steadily upon
this widening current of functional ability, we have now that group of
allied trades required to construct for modern man the material form in
which he lives and works—without which he cannot live and work.
A genealogical tree could be made, showing just where each branch
diverged, the workers in wood, clay, and stone dividing early; the
gradual appearance of the system of pipes and conduits which vitalise a
house; the development of windows in all forms, of doors and their
particular line of improvement, of interior finish, from daubed mud to
artistic decoration; and so on and so on, until we have now the house
which stands knit to the city by waste pipe, water pipe, gas pipe, and
electric wire; a house which represents the slow fruition of a thousand
centuries, the contributed intelligence and skill of a million men. The
evolution of this “social form” is as natural and orderly as the
evolution of any physical form. To the men through whom it grew the
whole course should have been a pleasure and a pride, and in large
measure it has been, in spite of all our misbeliefs.
To feel within one’s self the tendency toward a certain line of
production, to “learn the trade,” _i. e._, submit the brain to the
accumulated stimulus of that line of production—to feel the racial
skill begin to flow through one’s fingers—to do the thing
well—better—best!—and then, still unsatisfied, to relieve the pressure
by new invention of ways even better than the best—that is the
_natural_ sensation of the producer. Against this have operated at
every step the weight and darkness of our leaden lies. The child is
not so watched and trained as to develop the fine sense of special
“calling” which shows the best path in life. Only the extreme case,
the boy who _would_ be a sailor, or a mechanic, or whatever he was
meant to be, has the advantage of being where he belongs in the
world’s work. But the average boy, with no special aptitude or
pleasure in his trade, is put to work under the dominant idea, drilled
in from infancy, that he is to work only because he has to—he has to
in order to get the pay. The whole outlook of his position is lost. He
has his head in a bag. All he sees is the week’s wage, and the work is
merely to be gotten through in order to get the wage.
We have known all along that this was a wrong attitude, and have tried
to inculcate upon the worker a sense of “the nobility of labour,” of
“duty to his employer,” of the “common interest of capital and labour.”
It does not ennoble the labourer to enlarge his selfishness to the size
of his employer’s. The employer is in exactly the same boat. He has no
more sense of what his work is for than the “hand” has. He too is
looking only at his wages,—salary, income, profits, rent,—looking only
at what he is _to get_ from society, instead of what he is to do for it.
The common interest of employer and employee, which is merely an
interest in their common income, does not lift the cloud from labour. No
interest is large enough to satisfy the human mind, except the social
interest; the thrilling glory of working with and for the whole world at
the trade you love best, and can do best.
The workman should have such education as shall give him for a
background the full knowledge of social evolution; and the special place
of his own trade in that evolution. He should know just where it first
appeared, how it grew, and why, the importance of its place to-day—and
here there would, no doubt, be warm differences of opinion, debates and
competition. The payment for his service should no more be the point of
ambition with the workman, than with the pen-man, paint-man, or
rifleman. The producer is entitled to feel the full power and pride of
production; and, in spite of our errors, this power and pride is felt by
the well-placed workman, whose life is better than his belief—as human
life always is.
One of the most important features of this great social function is the
reactive effect on the functionary. The maker is inexorably modified by
the thing made. If the thing made develops along normal lines, the maker
develops with it. If it does not—if it is checked or perverted in its
growth, so is the worker. Working is humanity’s growing. In the act of
working the individual is modified, and by the work accomplished
humanity is modified. Also the accomplished work remains, like coral,
the record of the height of those who did it.
In the case of those who do not work, who consume copiously, and produce
nothing, they have no chance of normal development, add no step to human
progress. See in conspicuous instance the Grecian marbles and
literature. Those who gave the work were themselves developed by doing
it; the society which received the work was developed by using it; and
by the work as it remains to us, we know and judge Greece. But the
possession of these works does not make us Greeks. To be able to do them
was to be Greek. Many causes combined to make the Greek; and the Greek
blossomed into that kind of work—he was, so to speak, merely Greeking in
the doing of it. We have the result as we have fossil bones. From it we
may learn what the Greek was, but not how to make him.
A person, or a race, is something, owing to antecedent conditions. Then
they _do_ something by virtue of being what they are, as an apple tree
bears apples. (“By their fruits ye shall know them.”)
The thing done does have some reactive effect, however—else we should
have no power to modify each other, and this is one of humanity’s chief
advantages. The modifying effect of the work accomplished is indeed
large, it is no wonder we so long to create the things whereby we can
thus progressively serve each other. See, for instance, the endless
effect upon society of such work as Plato’s, Angelo’s, Stevenson’s,
Edison’s; all work counts in both ways; in the doing it affects the
doer; when done it affects the user.
But it is more blessed to give than to receive. In animals the
modification of species is effected only in the direct line of heredity.
A change of condition modifies his action—the change in action modifies
him—and the modification is transmitted in his single line. But there is
no means of widening the effect—it has to be filtered down through
direct heredity. With man, in his organic connection, there is a race
modification through our transmission of energy in work, which
multiplies his progress million-fold. Some local change of condition
modifies the action of one person, the change in action modifies him,
and the modification is transmitted in his single line. Thus far we are
even with the animals. Then we pass them; man’s action is work; it is
not mere putting something in his mouth; it is making something. And the
thing made holds and transmits his energy, passing it on forever to all
who use it, making the growth of one the growth of all.
One man, or some few men, make a steam engine. They personally are by so
much developed as makers, and their children after them. That is so much
gain. But if we had waited for our inventors to modify the race through
physical heredity, we should be still in the Bronze Age. The engine,
being made, becomes part of the social structure, and proceeds to modify
the society it serves.
The bicycle is perhaps a better instance. The effect of the making is
not materially different from the effect of making watches. But the
thing made has modified society by the reactive effects of its use. It
has modified the dress, the activity, and so the physique and character
of women, to their great improvement. It has modified roads—to the great
material benefit of the regions affected. It has modified inn-keeping,
livery-stabling, tailoring, the relative distance of residence—the
effects of the bicycle on society are great, even upon the most
superficial survey. But this is no reason why the maker of bicycles
should be a better man than the maker of chronometers, or that either of
them should be paid more than the maker of pianos, or less than the
maker of poems.
The first effect of work, its result, return, or payment, is to the
maker in the quality and quantity of his effort. No one can measure his
pay or deny it. The second is to the user in the fulness of his use.
This, alas! can be measured and denied, and has been, to our racial
injury. No tyranny was ever able to prevent the steady development of
man through the work he did. If he laboured faithfully and generously,
he grew in the outputting of his strength, and his growth ultimately
overthrew the tyranny. But tyranny of various sorts has withheld from
the workers the reactive benefits of using the product of their work;
and so hindered race development.
The builders of beautiful houses, working well, are necessarily
benefited by their own working; but if they are forced to live in poor,
ugly, unhealthy houses, they are not benefited by the results of the
work. This is a grave limitation of a man’s income; and if his income is
checked, his output is checked also. As an unwise farmer exhausts his
soil in greedy harvesting without due fertilisation, so we have drawn
upon the creative energies of humanity and denied the rich replenishment
which would have made the product so much more prolific.
Here the mischievous effect of our Want theory comes in plainly. The man
who is working merely for pay must _cater to the purchaser_. He must
please existing tastes. Looking at his product, not as an end, to
benefit society, but as a means to benefit himself, he must so produce
as to secure a buyer. This is the “pot-boiler” again. The artist who
paints to suit his patrons and get their money is not the true artist,
and through him art does not grow. The maker of coats or hats or houses
or dishes submits to this degrading pressure, and the result is seen in
our debased and vulgar forms of manufacture everywhere.
The evil effects to the consumer are more manifest in some trades than
in others, as, for instance, in the liquor trade. Here we have human
beings producing what they know people will buy; and then, not content
with the existing demand, using all possible means to excite and
maintain a further demand—simply that they may make money.
Again, in our degraded press, we have a most conspicuous instance of
this prostitution of a great social function to private ends. Under the
mistaken idea that the distribution of news is a process for feeding
owners of papers, and thus being led to arrange their news so as to
please the most buyers, they rapidly descend along lines of least
resistance to a wholesale catering to the worst tastes of the most
people; and supplement that by elaborate efforts to foment and spread
the low appetites they so obsequiously serve.
Naturally there is no growth and grandeur in a trade like this. To
spread knowledge, sympathy, instant information of the world’s movements
good and bad, is to take part in one of society’s chief functions; in
the general nervous system of the world. But to ascertain that society
enjoys certain sensations, and to force the general presentation of news
into a special arrangement to give those desired sensations, is to turn
healthy action into a loathsome disease. In any form of human
production, the object is to serve the consumer by the best development
of the product, _not_ to use the consumer as a means of profit for the
producer. The producer must, of course, be provided for; as must the
soldier, artist, physician; but self-interest is not the object of the
work.
In the production of shoes, again, the object should be a constant
improvement in material, shape, wearing quality, and general utility and
beauty. Deliberately to change the shape and size, the proportion and
make of human footwear, merely to cater to low tastes, is the degrading
“pot-boiler”; the prostituting of a social function to a private end.
All forms of cheap and dishonest production, of adulteration, of an
artificially forced market, are directly traceable to our Want theory;
to our persistent superstition which still crudely imagines this vast
and intricate world of interservice to be a primeval forest, where beast
and savage hunt for prey. The mistake in object degrades the product,
and the degraded product degrades the man. Thus our immense field of
production is not only checked in output and arrested in distribution,
but weakened through and through by adulteration and bad workmanship;
with evils in result, unending. The natural trend toward a wider,
fuller, easier, and ever better production, accompanied at every step by
growing pride and power and pleasure in the producer, is hindered and
perverted to large degree by our prevalent economic fallacies.
Another conspicuous point where our errors touch production is seen in
the arts especially; the particular mistake here being in the
persistence of the ego concept; our confusion of self-expression with
social service. The social consciousness, unrecognised, presents itself
to our minds as a huger self-consciousness.
We have often wondered at the inordinate selfishness of man, compared to
which the innocent egoism of the beasts is angelic. This tremendous
range and depth of selfishness is because of that essential enlargement
of self which comes with socialisation—the individual of a given society
is that society—feels it as a “self.” The Roman, to the limits of his
capacity, is Rome. The socialised individual carries in him the
enlargement of his society. He has a wider soul, perforce, that is our
human quality. This larger self, a thing frankly essential to social
existence, enabling the individual to so think, feel, and act with and
for his society, comes into action long before it is recognised by the
“local office”—the mind of the individual. The mind has to learn its own
contents as well as its outside environment. Our traditional labelling
of those contents is no more correct than our primitive misconceptions
of geography or physics.
What we personally call a quality does not affect its nature, but does
affect our own conscious behaviour. The ability we display to mistake
and miscall our own qualities and those of other people, is apparently
immeasurable. So we feel this social soul, this larger aliveness; a
power of caring for millions, of wanting for millions, and of doing for
millions; and, since we ourselves feel it in ourselves, we call it
self-consciousness.
A man, joining a regiment of old and splendid fame, comes to feel and
act strongly from the regimental consciousness. He feels it with his own
mental machinery; but it is not an enlargement of his personal
self-consciousness—that is forever limited to his personality. This
larger self—society, and its accompanying social consciousness—we calmly
appropriate as a personal quality, and proceed to act on it. Having the
capacity to think, feel, act for a thousand, we proceed to think, feel,
and act a thousand times more for ourselves. Therefore we are naturally
appalled at the limitlessness of “human selfishness.”
The whole mistake is natural enough—the conscious mind always lagging
behind our unconscious growth; but to-day the social consciousness is
finally forcing itself on the perception of the individual; and that
which we have called selfishness, and which is really socialness
misused, will be lifted from vice to virtue as we re-name it. Once
properly recognised, we have quite ability enough to measure the man who
uses a public power for a private end; to measure and condemn. But while
this misconception still exists we have a minor confusion as to
“self-expression” and “social service.”