Part 21

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.

Even in the more ordinary kinds of work we occasionally see the strong, clear urgency of a specialised worker toward his special work, and his pleasure in it; an urgency and a pleasure not related to honour or payment, but to the work itself. The reason we see less of the natural impulse to work in the main fields of labour is partly because we have piled our ignorant contempt most particularly on the kind of work we most needed, and partly because we have added to our contempt the heaviest practical difficulties by careful cutting off the general worker from his full share of social nutrition. The rank and file of humanity, as a result of our misconceptions about work, are so drained of nervous energy from generation to generation by being overtaxed in labour, and so defrauded of social nourishment by our system of “payment” based on those misconceptions, that it is marvellous indeed to see the work they do under these conditions, and not marvellous at all to see their steady tendency toward pauperism, criminalism, and all disease.

Of London it is stated that when the labourer from the country comes into the city to work, the second generation of his line is inferior in health, strength, and ability, the third generation much crippled and diseased, and there is no fourth.

Under social conditions like these it is not to be expected that we shall find much evidence of man’s natural desire to work, either general or special. As well look for willing industry in a hospital. On the contrary, it is to be expected that this body of people shall be unwilling and largely unable to work, that they shall seek continually to avoid work and as continually seek to enlarge their supply of social nourishment so cruelly cut off. It will take several generations of right living to reimburse this part of our social stock and bring them up to the level of social energy required to enjoy work. But when the swift recuperative forces of physiology have rebuilt the individual animal, and the far swifter forces of Sociology have refilled them with their share of our vast resources of strength and inspiration, and their share of the social interest, pride, and love which mark the fully human creature, then we shall find our assumption, “no man will exert himself unless to gratify desire,” to lack even its present justification.

There is no pain, no waste, no loss to normal work; it is a free discharge of abundant social energy, either unconscious or accompanied by sensations of keenest pleasure.

Let us consider this Want theory a little further.

A solitary animal cannot get his dinner without exerting himself. If he could, he would not exert himself. This we observe, and then, considering man as an animal like the others, we assume similarly: A man cannot get his dinner without exerting himself; if he could, he would not exert himself. Why we are so anxious to see to it that every man shall exert himself, a thing which evidently cannot concern the public if he is merely getting his own dinner, is a bit puzzling. But on perceiving that unless he exerts himself we do not get our dinner, our interest is excused.

Let us restate the proposition. Mankind cannot get its dinner without exerting itself. If it could, it would not exert itself.

Granted at once. If agriculture, manufacture, and commerce were not essential to social life, they would not have been evolved. But there is an immediate difference introduced in the “exertion” involved and its causes. Our social nutritive processes being complex and collective, require the elaborate activities of many individuals in lines which bear no relation whatever to their own dinners.

Social evolution, wiser and more practical than we, has met the necessities of the case by developing those organic tendencies in man which urge him to his social activities, and that always-increasing fund of social nutrition and social energy which enables him to do his work. The difference between an architect dreaming great buildings and eager to build them and an animal struggling for his food, is as the difference between the action of the heart and the action of a hungry fox. The fox exerts himself to supply his wants, the heart exerts itself as a functional activity it cannot help and without any reference to its wants.

Its wants are supplied, to be sure, but not in measured dole related to its activities. The exertions of the heart bear relation to the need of the organism to which it belongs, not to its own appetite. If you have to run, your heart works harder; it had no need of extra work, but you had, and, being an organ, it performed the work.

Man’s work is called for by the social demands. Society needs Commerce, and Commerce is developed. Society needs Art, and Art is developed. But man, being a self-conscious individual, had to be convinced from without as well as urged from within, else he stoutly refused to perform his social service. “Why should I,” he asks, “if it does not benefit me? A man works only to get something.” Before he had got even this far in formulating his objection to work, he was forced to it, as we have seen, by the slave system and effectually coerced. To meet this later attitude of refusal he was forced to it by the wage system, and effectually coerced as before. In the first case the anti-social results of that form of labour have led to its being discarded, and in the second case we are rapidly approaching the same conclusion. Social service performed under the persuasion of self-interest is accompanied by so many deleterious and anti-social phenomena that it is high time we adopted a wiser system.

When exertion is recognised as a racial necessity and a high individual pleasure, there is no longer any weight to the first clause of the Want theory. When it is shown that our desires are gratified by the exertion of others exclusively, there is no longer any weight to the second. And when it is shown that the required “exertion” is not an exertion at all, but a relief, a mere letting off of the social steam pressure, the Want theory begins to need a historian to explain it. The only really confusing element lies in the system of exchange now in use, the wage system, and will be taken up in the chapter on Distribution.

X: THE NATURE OF WORK (II) Summary

Life a verb. Vegetable life processes, animal and social. Work is human life. A sick society. Transmission of energy, pleasure in collective sensation. Pleasure in specific function. Pain of malposition and mal-nutrition. Recapitulation. Work is making, not taking. Squaw and hunter. Maternal energy. Bee. The motherised male. Short circuit of individual action. Production of food. Common defence. The social base and ensuing variation. Attendant evils. Personal consequences and social. Social treason. Sin of common carriers. Contrast between effect of industry and war. Agriculture and peace. Commerce and honesty and justice. Work is altruistic. Steps of development. Female origin of Work. True Human Work has no sex connotation. Male belligerence in industry. The world and the home. Thief and pauper. Production collective. The Social traitor. Work is giving out, not taking in. Slavery an essential transition system, also wagery. Master, Employer, Co-operator. Shame of work based on slavery and self-interest. Social productivity has allowed disease. American attitude toward work. Conservation of energy. Work must not waste force, organic action does not. Accumulated energy must be discharged. Social energy enormous. Normal work an easy discharge. Abnormal work injurious. Social evolution in ease and happiness. Effect of false concepts. Child’s delight in work. Organic action agreeable or unconscious. Conditions of normal work.

X THE NATURE OF WORK (II)

Life is a verb, not a noun. Life is living, living is doing, life is that which is done by the organism.

The living of a tree consists in the action of the roots in obtaining food; of the leaves in obtaining air; of the sap in circulating, distributing these goods; and in the processes of reproduction. The life of an animal is more complex. He has a somewhat similar internal mechanism; he breathes, circulates, and reproduces; but with him the fumbling root-tip has become a paw, a mouth, a whole group of related members wherewith to meet his needs; he has more to do to find his food than just to poke in the dark. Living, for an animal, involves many interesting activities, and those activities are his life.

The life of Society is higher and wider yet. Here are the separate animal constituents whose life processes must be kept going, and here are the wholly new social life processes to be carried on. Human life involves the performance of the complex social life processes. The plant has poking, absorbing, circulating, breathing, and reproducing to do. That is plant life. The animal similarly circulates, breathes, and reproduces, but he “pokes” in a much more elaborate manner, developing also new methods of offence and defence in maintaining these essential functions. That is animal life. Man, as an animal, breathes, circulates, and reproduces in humble pursuance of previous methods, but as a social being not only has his nutritive process become of enormous organic complexity, but there have appeared also vast and subtle developments of special functions hitherto unknown: industry, trade, commerce, art, science, education, government,—all that we call Work.

In this development is human life. I do not mean that it is essential to human life, it is human life. If the gathering and circulating of nutrition, the absorption of air, the blossoming and fruition of a tree are “essential to the tree’s life,” pray, what remains as “the life” of the tree to which they are essential? You may truly say that breathing, circulating, and reproducing are “essential” to an animal’s life; that life, as distinct from other lives, being the more special activities he has developed. So with the human creature. It is essential to his animal life that he breathe, circulate, and reproduce; it is essential to his human life also that he perform enough varied physical activity to keep him in good form; but it is his human life to be “doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief,” or whatever is his department in the social economy.