Part 9

5. The Self-Interest Theory.

6. The Pain Concept.

7. The Law of Supply and Demand;

with the derivative scorn for work; here only enumerated and briefly set forth for convenience in reference.

V: THE NATURE OF SOCIETY (I) Summary

Idea of social organism, not new. Proposition stated. Proof advanced on three main lines. First, nutritive processes of collective and organic society. Men do not support themselves. World-wide production and distribution of food. Individual could not become baker or tailor, they are social functionaries. Organic evolution along line of modification to food supply. Man the only creature who has mastered his food supply, he makes that which makes him, he produces food. Production of food a collective function, never found in individual animals. Physical conditions of agriculture essential to social progress, agricultural unit a village. Second, specialised activities of society collective and organic. Social evolution of trades, arts, businesses. Increasing interdependence. Instance of teacher. Evolution of social functions. Third, the brain a collective organ, a social organ, thought a social function. Effect of isolation on human brain, partial or complete. Difficulty of retaining mental stimulus. Individual animal’s brain in relation to his own activities. Human brain in relation to common activities.

V THE NATURE OF SOCIETY (I)

The concept that society is an organic form of life is not new to the world.

The popular mind, confronted with many conspicuous proofs of human solidarity, admitted the idea to one of those thought-tight compartments in which we keep such concepts as we are unable or unwilling to think through and hold in logical relation to our others. There it has remained, enlarging somewhat in course of time and loud events, and tending to modify such conduct as came its way to the social benefit. But since a much larger brain era was governed by the egoistic concept, and vital affairs far more directed by it, we still consciously act as individualists, and still construe Human life in terms of the individual. Let us now use the temporary power of the brain to think in defiance of its own previously held ideas; and study the organic nature of Society.

The proposition is that Society is the whole and we are the parts: that that degree of organic development known as human life is never found in isolated individuals, and that it progresses to higher development in proportion to the evolution of the social relation; that a man is, individually, a complete animal, with sufficient ability to attain the necessities of an animal existence; but that as a human being he is but a minute fraction of a great entity, the necessities of whose existence are only to be attained by the complex interdependent activities of many men.

That this relation is strictly organic, involving the high specialisation of the individual man to the social service in activities which are of no possible benefit to his separate animal life—(as the activities of a dentist or a teacher); but which are of visible benefit to his community, his community in turn supporting him.

That these common and composite activities have developed a life-form quite above and beyond that of its constituent men; with a structure and functions outside of and including theirs. That whereas the life processes of the constituent individuals must of course be insured and improved by the higher life inclosing them; yet that a greater or less sacrifice of individual interests may at any time be necessary—and is naturally made—the greater including the less.

That this Social Organisation tends to make safe and happy its constituent organisms in their separate animal lives, yet their greatest happiness lies in their recognition and fulfilment of the social life.

That an increasing social consciousness and social activity is the most healthful and happy growth for the human race; and further, that “the riddle of human life” is made quite simple by this purely natural and evolutionary position.

In proof and illustration let us consider certain facts, most of them commonly known to us all, but not commonly considered in this connection. We will observe in turn the organic nature of Society as shown in its nutritive processes, in its high and personally sacrificial specialisations, and in its patently collective mental life.

First, and most visible, come the physical life processes; those daily activities in which our energies find expression, by the products of which our lives are maintained. Among facts suitable for nursery education is the glaring one that in plainest economic relation “no man liveth to himself nor dieth to himself.”

Each man does not support himself by his own efforts, as an individual animal does, but pools his efforts with those of others and shares in the common good as a collective animal does; as the bee or ant. This does not refer to any consciously advocated plan of collectivism; but to the present fact that our coffee comes from one country and our tea from another; that the Californian gives us oranges and the Kansan beef; that the carpenter and mason build our houses and the tailor makes our coats.

The daily necessities of one man are met by the activities of countless other men. If they were gone, the one man could not supply himself with any of these things; but would, if he lived, sink to the level of the savage hunter,—who is indeed “self-supporting.” We have, it is true, a system of exchange in which it is endeavoured to make each man’s share in the common product proportionate to his personal efforts; but even if this system worked successfully it would not alter the fact that the supplies are really made by the others—and the one—alone—could not make them.

Lay aside for the moment the confusion of idea naturally arising from our system of interpersonal exchange and its convenient medium, money.

Suppose that money were entirely out of the world; or that we were so flooded with it that it lost its value as a medium of exchange. Great confusion as to how much of anything should be demanded for something else would of course ensue; but the most conspicuous result would be the unavoidable perception that it was the thing we needed to live on—not the money.

The purchasing power of money varies continually, but the nourishing power of wheat or the heat-retaining power of wool does not vary. We eat the bread and are kept warm by the coat; and the wheat and wool are prepared for us by many strangers. It may be for a moment supposed that an individual man could, if he chose, make his own bread and coat from his own wheat and wool, but follow back the evolution of these processes and see if he ever did.

The more nearly alone you find a man—as the Bushmen—the more nearly naked he is, the more absolutely a hunter and an eater of raw food. To raise wheat and bake bread requires a stationary group of long standing. It is a social process. So with the coat—the man who lives really alone wears at most the skin of another animal.

To keep sheep, to shear, and card, and spin, and weave, and cut, and sew—all these processes require a stationary group of still longer standing; they are social processes. A man alone can catch another animal, can “eat his fat and wear his hair”; but the baker and the tailor are slowly evolved social functionaries. Everywhere we see the present proof that the wants of man are not supplied by his own efforts and cannot be; that his life processes are essentially collective.

Now let us approach these facts from behind, watch their inception and growth, and see how unavoidable is the conclusion.

The life of any creature is primarily dependent on the regular renewal of its constituent particles. The process of living uses up the materials lived in. Living involves dying, and to postpone the dying the structure is continually supplied with fresh materials. This continuous supply of fresh materials we call nutrition. It is an increasingly elaborate process, with “many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip”; and the main line of organic evolution is in development of these nutritive processes.

Conditions of the environment modify a creature, as in hide and hair; conditions of inter-animal competition modify him, as in horns and stings; conditions of reproduction modify him, developing an elaborate physical mechanism and a more elaborate scheme of decoration; but the most distinctive modification of a creature is that produced by its nutritive conditions. “Order Mammalia,” with all its towering superiority, is founded merely on a new way of feeding the baby. The food supply of the world is subject to fluctuating influences—climatic, geographic, and other; and as we watch the widening panorama of animal forms changing and growing up the ages, we see the whole procession to be moving always in one line—in pursuit of its dinner. We think of our dinners as a pleasing series of events, but we do not appreciate their awful importance.

The life of any creature absolutely depends on getting together a certain group of chemical constituents and keeping them reinforced. While those constituents, massed in certain proportions, are cunningly poured through a certain small orifice called a mouth, the creature lives. A procession of dinners passing a given point—that is the physical condition of life. We are the given point. If the procession goes another way—or stops awhile—“we” cease to live.

And since there is no law of nature calling on the proper constituents to arise, to detach themselves from their undesirable comrades, to form into rightly proportioned groups, appear at proper intervals and to enter the “given point,”—therefore the principal machinery of every living form is developed to discover, pursue, seize, and gather in these constituents. To obtain what we want from the air, gills and lungs are invented; that supply is so instantly imperative and so plentiful and easy of access, that an unconscious organic motion sucks it in. If food were as simple and common as oxygen we should be spared much exertion.