The Next Step: A Plan for Economic World Federation Part 16

The organization of a producers' society would do more than abolish the cruder aspects of the present economic struggle. It would lay the foundation for a new culture founded on the dignity and the worth of labor.

There are two groups of human instincts in ceaseless contention for supremacy--the possessive and the creative. Both are of immediate economic importance, and the triumph of the one usually means the subordination of the other. The instincts which urge in the direction of acquisition and acc.u.mulation tend to make the man a conservator. Once let him possess an abundance of the world's goods and his chief object is to hold what he has gained. The instincts which urge toward construction and creation tend to make man an innovator, initiator, an improver. The side of man's nature that urges him to possess, directs him toward wealth and power. The side of his nature that leads him to create points to invention, to craftmanship, to artistry. Thus the possessive and the creative instincts are not merely at odds. Possession leads to status while creation leads to improvement.

There are some natures that are definitely inclined toward acquisition.

There are others as firmly set in the direction of creation. For such natures the social standards possess little importance. They have their bent and they follow it. The great ma.s.s of men, however, have no positive set in either direction. Their lives will be primarily possessive or primarily creative, depending upon the kind of training that they receive.

Modern society lays its emphasis on possession and acc.u.mulation, and upon the wealth and power which they yield. The owner of land or of capital, under the present economic order, is not required to work for his living. His rents and dividends furnish him a source of income far more regular and much more dependable than the wage of the worker, or even than the salary of the man higher up. The rewards of the property owner, moreover, are far larger than those of the worker. Compare the income tax returns of Germany, Britain and the United States with the wage scales from the same countries. The incomes above ten thousand dollars (two thousand pounds or 40,000 marks in pre-war values) per year are derived largely or exclusively from the ownership of property. It pays far better to own than it does to work. The ownership of capital, like the ownership of land, carries with it power over those who must use the capital and work the land, thus setting up an owning group or cla.s.s which is able to control the lives of the workers, at least to the extent of taking a part of their product and living upon it without rendering any commensurate service in return. With the economic rewards go social honors and distinctions, and the wealthy enjoy social as well as economic privileges. They develop a system of dress, of language, of manners and customs that will distinguish them as far as possible from the common herd, namely, those who work for a living. Veblen describes the process admirably in his "Theory of the Leisure Cla.s.s." The leisure cla.s.s, he says, has its origin in some form of ownership, on which it builds the structure of its prerogatives.

The existence of an owning, ruling cla.s.s divides society into factions, whose contentions threaten the destruction of any social group in which they take place. From the intolerable social situation which they create, there seems to be but one logical means of escape, and that is through the establishment of a society in which labor and not parasitism is the ideal toward which children are taught to strive.

Such a society would shift the emphasis from possession to creation (production) by rewarding the worker rather than the owner. This result may be accomplished quite simply by giving the chief rewards to those who create, and by denying to the owner any direct reward for his ownership. Another step in the same direction could be taken by limiting individual ownership to the things that men use, and concentrating in the producing group the ownership of all productive tools.

When economic rewards are withdrawn from possession and given to creation, it will pay better to create than it will to own. Furthermore, since ownership of itself would involve no power over others, another important incentive to acc.u.mulation would be removed.

A producers' society, as a matter of course, would accord the most honor to those who engaged in productive activity, thus registering the social opinion in favor of creating rather than of possessing and exploiting. With the economic and the social rewards going to producers, the young of each generation would learn that it was more worth while to be a producer than to be an owner.

Again a producers' society would aim to secure the common partic.i.p.ation in the necessary social tasks--the drudgery and the "dirty-work." With the essential work performed in part by all able-bodied persons, no stigma would attach to those who were engaged in it, the cla.s.s of economic pariahs would be eliminated, and each partic.i.p.ant in the necessary economic work of the world would feel that he belonged to the group in which he was playing so important a role.

"But," argues the doubter, "all of this is against human nature. How is it possible to expect that men will stop possessing, or will lose the desire for possession?"

They cannot be expected to do either, of course. But it so happens that, in any industrial society, the group living on its ownership is a very small one compared with the group living by its labor. The preference, in an industrial community, can therefore easily incline to labor rather than to ownership. As for the chief rewards of life going to producers rather than to owners, this is historically practicable. Greek society worked out an elaborate system of honors and rewards for those who could create. Human nature has not been fairly or adequately tested in recent years. Only certain of its phases have been developed by social demands, and those phases--the possessive instincts--are among the least socially advantageous of human qualities.

An emphasis on production rather than on acc.u.mulation would have another important result--more important, in a sense, than any of those named.

It would establish a feeling of self-respect among those who work by giving them the only conceivable economic basis for self-respect--the ownership and control of their jobs.

While one man owns a job on which another man must work in order to live, the job-owner is the master, and the job-taker is his va.s.sal.

Necessarily, the va.s.sal occupies a position of servility. When he asks for an opportunity to work, he is asking for an opportunity to live.

When he takes a job he is binding his life and his conduct under terms prescribed by the job-owner. If he has a family, or owns a home, or is in any way tied to one spot, he is doubly bound.

The establishment of a producers' society would make each man his own master in somewhat the same sense that the farmer or the artisan who owns his land or tools is the arbiter of his own economic destiny. That is, he would own his job and share in its control.

Thus society would eliminate the inequalities that are now created by the concentration of ownership and power in a few hands, and would establish a relative equality among those who produced. The great fear of the modern worker--the fear of unemployment or job-loss--would also be eliminated, since the producers, in a society of which they had control, would be able to hold their own jobs.

These various means would serve to dignify labor and production, and to establish a society in which prestige and honor would attach to creation rather than to ownership.

4. _Wisdom in Consumption_

One of the chief weapons of a leisure cla.s.s is some mark that will easily distinguish its members from the workers. This mark, in modern society, is conspicuous consumption. By the quality and style of its wearing apparel, by the scale of its housing, by the mult.i.tude of its possessions, its luxuries and its enjoyments, the leisure cla.s.s sets itself apart from the remainder of the community, advertising to the world, in the most unmistakable manner, its capacity to spend more than the members of the working cla.s.s can earn.

This need for distinction through consumption has set a living standard which the less well-to-do families seek to emulate. Among the leisured, there is an eager race to decide which can spend the most lavishly, while those of less economic means make a determined effort to put on front and to appear richer than they really are.

The result of this compet.i.tion among neighbors is an absurd attention to the quant.i.ty and to the cost of possessions, with a comparative indifference to their intrinsic beauty or to their utility. Nowhere is this better ill.u.s.trated than in the rapidly altering styles of woman's dress. One season silk stockings and low-cut waists are worn in the middle of winter: the next, expensive furs appear in mid-summer. With little reference to artistic effect, and with even less attention to the needs of the individual, the procession of the styles moves across the social stage with tens of millions eagerly watching for the tiniest change in cut or color.

The devotion of an entire cla.s.s to this conspicuous leisure has no social justification save the silly argument that "it makes work." It is one of the logical products of a stratified or cla.s.s society where the lower cla.s.ses seek to ape the upper cla.s.ses, while the latter engage in a mad scramble to determine which shall set the most grotesque standards of social conduct.

A producers' society will of necessity take a stand of far-reaching consequence on the question of consumption. In the first place it will realize that one of the most signal failures of the present order lies in the inability of the people to find either happiness or growth in the acc.u.mulation of possessions. If the mult.i.tude of things owned would satisfy men's needs, the upper cla.s.ses of the present society would be the happiest that the world has ever known, since they are able to command a quant.i.ty and a variety of things that far surpa.s.ses previous historic records. Instead of bringing happiness, however, these things have merely brought care, anxiety and finally disillusionment. Now, as always, it is true that a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions, or, as Carlyle puts it, "Not what I have but what I do is my kingdom."

The citizens of a producers' society will therefore teach to their children, and will practice an abstemiousness in the midst of plenty--a withdrawal from possessions--in order that the body may have enough, but not too much, and that the spirit may be freed from an undue weight of things. The Greeks understood the principle well; so did the American Indians. They desired, not many things, but an enrichment of life, which they realized could come only through understanding, tranquillity and inner growth.

As a matter of course, a producers' society will enforce the axiom: No luxuries for any until the necessaries are supplied to all. This corresponds with the well-established practice of many primitive peoples. It is likewise the application of the highest ethical principles to economic life, and is the course of procedure that man's most elemental sense of justice demands.

A more or less rigid adherence to the principle of necessaries first, and an understanding of the futility of seeking for happiness through possessions, will place a rigid limitation upon the amount of time devoted to satisfying economic needs, and will release a generous share of time and energy that may be devoted to supplying the other needs of man. Heretofore, leisure has been absorbed by one cla.s.s or group. Under a producers' society it would be distributed, like any other social advantage, on an equitable basis.

Already sufficient advances have been made in machine production to enable the human race to produce the economic necessaries of each day in a few hours of labor--two, or three, or four, perhaps. It remains for a producers' society to take advantage of this productive efficiency, and to convert the increased productivity, not, as at present, into more goods, but rather into more free time for people.

5. _Leisure for Effective Expression_

The primary aim of a producers' society would be leisure rather than goods--an opportunity for expression rather than an increase in the amount of possessions. One of its great tasks would therefore be the education of its citizenship in the effective use of leisure.

This new, socialized leisure, which yesterday was a privilege of the ruling cla.s.ses and of many of the artisans and farmers, which is to-day the heritage of primitive peoples, and which has been so largely lost in the rush of machine production, will be used: (1) to make and to maintain social contacts; (2) for creative activities; (3) for recreation, and (4) for whatever other means are necessary to promote the growth of the individual.

An effective society must be composed of effective individuals. In no other way can a high social standard be maintained. The growth of the individual, in a modern community depends, in large measure, on the way in which he uses his leisure.

6. _Culture and Human Aspiration_

At various stages in the development of society there have emerged cultures founded on some particular group of human aspirations. Thus the forward-looking side of man's nature expressed itself.

After he had finished the daily tasks by means of which he earned a subsistence, or, more usually, as a member of a leisure cla.s.s that was exempt from the necessity of labor, the man dominated by strong creative impulses sought to embody, in some concrete form, the desires which he felt springing up within him, and which could not be satisfied by physical activity. He turned, therefore, to drawing, to painting, to music, to speculation, to discussion.

The present age has not as yet developed its culture, and it seems now as though capitalism, with its heritage of revolution, and its curse of instability and hurry, would not persist long enough to establish a well-defined culture. Hence, in the present society, mult.i.tudes feel that certain finer things are excluded from their lives because the ground is so littered with possessions, and because life is too harried and too sordid to give them place.

These forces, the creative impulses of the artist and the builder, yearn unspeakably for expression. Each human breast holds a void that is the result of their suppression, and it is this, perhaps, more than anything else, that accounts for the unrest and dissatisfaction that are so characteristic of the present generation.

In the past only the favored few had a chance to express their most holy aspirations. The development of modern industry, with its facility in the production of livelihood, promises a time, and that at no very great distance, when this opportunity may be common property, and men everywhere may be able to partic.i.p.ate in that unending search after love, beauty, justice, truth--the highest of which humanity is capable.

All of these things lie outside the realm of economics, yet none of them is possible for the ma.s.ses of mankind until there is established a system of economic life that will provide the necessaries upon which physical health depends, together with an amount of leisure sufficient to enable a generation to find itself.

This is the goal toward which men are working in their efforts to organize economic life, as they strive to provide a fit dwelling-place for the descendants of the world's seventeen hundred millions.

WHAT TO READ

No reader should accept the statements made in this book unless they appeal to his reason and correspond with his experience, nor should he reject them merely because they run counter to his prejudices or his convictions. If the subject-matter of the book is as important as the author believes that it is, the reader should not stop with these brief chapters, but should search farther. The many recent articles, pamphlets and books devoted to economic and social reconstruction give an excellent chance for selection. Here are a few suggestions:

H. deB. Gibbins has written one of the best descriptive books on the economic changes surrounding the industrial revolution. ("Industry in England" London, Methuen, 1896.) See also his "Economic and Industrial Progress of the Century" (London, Chambers, 1903).

Supplement this by reading another old book, "Recent Economic Changes,"

by D.A. Wells. (New York, Appleton, 1898.)

More up to date, and in the same field, are "The Great Society," (Graham Wallas, New York, Macmillan, 1914, Chapter I); "Economic Consequences of the Peace," J.M. Keynes, (New York, Harcourt, 1920, Chapter II); "The Fruits of Victory," Norman Angell (Glasgow, Collins, 1921) Chapters I and II.

The economic chaos resulting from the war has been described with journalistic accuracy by Frank A. Vanderlip, American banker, in his "What Happened to Europe?" (New York, Macmillan, 1919) and in "What Next in Europe?" (New York, Harcourt, 1922). The European situation is dealt with in great detail by the "Manchester Guardian Commercial." Beginning with April 20, 1922, the "Commercial" has published a very complete series of articles under the general editorship of J.M. Keynes. The series is ent.i.tled "Reconstruction in Europe." "America and the Balance Sheet of Europe" (J.F. Ba.s.s and H.G. Moulton, New York, Ronald Press, 1921) is a study by two experts that goes into great detail with regard to budgets, public finances, exchange rates and the like. "Our Eleven Billion Dollars" (Robert Mountsier, New York, Seltzer, 1922) gives the same facts, brought up to date and popularized.