Woman under socialism Part 29

Furthermore--seeing that all are mutually active--the interest becomes general in the best and most complete, as well as in the quickest possible production of goods, with the object of saving labor, and of gaining time for the production of further wealth, looking to the gratification of higher wants. _Such a common interest spurs all to bend their thoughts towards simplifying and quickening the process of labor.

The ambition to invent and discover is stimulated to the highest pitch: each will seek to outdo the other in propositions and ideas._[176]

Just the reverse will, accordingly, happen of which the adversaries of Socialism claim. How many are not the inventors and discoverers who go to pieces in the capitalist world! How many has it not exploited and then cast aside! If talent and intellect, instead of property, stood at the head of bourgeois society, _the larger part of the employers would have to make room for their workingmen, master mechanics, technical overseers, engineers, chemists, etc._ These are the men, who, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, make the inventions, discoveries and improvements, which the man with the money-bag exploits. How many thousands of discoverers and inventors have gone to pieces unable to find the man of means ready to provide the wherewithal for the execution of their thoughts; how many germs of inventions and discoveries have been and continue to be nipped by the social stress for bare existence, is a matter that eludes all calculation. Not the men of head and brain, but those of large wealth are to-day the masters of the world,--which, however, does not exclude the occasional and exceptional phenomenon of brains and wealth being united in one person. The exception only proves the rule.

Everyone in practical life knows with what suspicion the workingman to-day regards every improvement, every invention introduced in the shop. And he is right. He rarely derives any advantage therefrom; it all accrues to the employer. The workingman is a.s.sailed with the fear lest the new machine, the new improvement cast him off to-morrow as superfluous. Instead of gladsome applause for an invention that does honor to man and is fraught with benefit for the race, he only has a malediction on his lips. We also know, from personal experience, how many an improvement perceived by the workingman, is not introduced: the workingman keeps silent, fearing to derive no benefit but only harm from it. Such are the natural consequences of an antagonism of interests.[177]

This antagonism of interests is removed in Socialist society. Each unfolds his faculties in his own interest, and, by so doing, simultaneously benefits the commonweal. To-day personal gratification is generally antagonistic to the common weal; the two exclude each other.

In the new Order, the antagonisms are removed: _The gratification of the ego and the promotion of the common weal harmonize, they supplement each other._[178]

The marvelous effect of such a mental and moral condition is obvious.

The productivity of labor will rise mightily, and such increased productivity makes possible the satisfaction of higher wants. Especially will the productivity of labor rise through the discontinuance of the present and enormous disintegration of labor, in hundreds of thousands, even millions of petty establishments, conducted with imperfect tools.

According to the industrial census of the German Empire for the year 1882, there were 3,005,457 leading establishments, exclusive of commerce, transportation, hotels and inns, in which 6,396,465 persons were occupied. Of these leading establishments, 61.1 per cent. employed less than 5 persons, and 16.8 per cent. employed from 6 to 50 persons.

The former are small concerns, the latter middle cla.s.s ones. Through the concentration of the small and middle cla.s.s establishments into large ones, equipped with all the advantages of modern technique, an enormous waste in power, time, material (light, heat, etc.) s.p.a.ce, now incurred, would be avoided, and the productivity of labor would gain proportionally. What difference there is in the productivity of small, middle cla.s.s and large establishments, even where modern technique is applied, may be ill.u.s.trated by the census of manufactories of the State of Ma.s.sachusetts for 1890. The establishments in ten leading industries were divided into three cla.s.ses. Those that produced less than $40,000 worth of goods were placed in the lowest cla.s.s; those that produced from $40,000 to $150,000 were placed in the middle cla.s.s; and those that produced over $150,000 worth of goods were placed in the upper cla.s.s.

The result was this:--

Number of Percentage Productivity Percentage Establishments. of All of of Total Cla.s.ses. Establishments. Each Cla.s.s. Productivity.

Lower 2,042 55.2 51,660,617 9.4 Middle 968 26.2 106,868,635 19.5 Upper 686 18.6 390,817,300 71.1 ----- ----- ----------- ----- 3,696 100.0 549,346,552 100.0

The more than twice as large number of small establishments turned out only 9.4 per cent. of the total product. But even the large establishments could, with hardly any exception, be conducted far more rationally than now, so that, under a system of collective production, aided by the most highly perfected technical process, an infinitely larger demand could be supplied.

Upon the subject of the saving of time, possible under a system of production planted on a rational basis, Th. Hertzka of Vienna has made some interesting calculations.[179] He investigated the amount of labor-power and time requisite for the satisfaction of the wants of the 22 million inhabitants of Austria by means of production on a large scale. To this end Hertzka gathered information upon the capacity of large establishments in several fields, and he based his calculations upon the data thus ascertained. In Hertzka's calculation are included 10,500,000 hectares of agricultural and 3,000,000 hectares of pasture lands, that should suffice for the production of agricultural products and of meat for the said population. Hertzka also included in his computation the building of houses on the basis of a house of 150 square meters, 5 rooms and strong enough to last 50 years, to each family. The result was that, for agricultural, building, the production of flour, sugar, coal, iron, machinery, clothing and chemicals, only 615,000 workingmen were needed, at work the whole year and at the present average hours of daily labor. These 615,000 workingmen are, however, _only 12.3 per cent. of the population of Austria, capable to work, exclusive of all the women as well as the males under 16 and over 50 years of age_. If all the 5,000,000 men, and not merely the above figure of 615,000, were engaged, then, _each of them would need to work only 36.9 days--six weeks in round figures_--in order to produce the necessaries of life for 22 million people. a.s.suming 300 work days in the year, instead of 37, and 11 as the present daily hours of work, it follows that, under this new organization of labor, _only 1-3/8 hours a day would be needed to cover the most pressing needs of all_.

Hertzka further computes the articles of luxury that the better situated demand, and he finds that the production of the same for 22 million people would require an additional 315,000 workingmen. Altogether, according to Hertzka, and making allowance for some industries that are not properly represented in Austria, one million in round figures, equal to 20 per cent. of the male population able to work, exclusive of those under 16 and above 50 years of age, would suffice to cover _all the needs of the population_ in 60 days. If, again, the whole male population able to work is made the basis of the computation, these would need to furnish but _two and a half hours work a day_.[180]

This computation will surprise none who take a comprehensive view of things. Considering, then, that, at such moderate hours, even the men 50 years old--all the sick and invalid excepted--are able to work; furthermore, that also youths under 16 years of age could be partially active, as well as a large number of women, in so far as these are not otherwise engaged in the education of children, the preparation of food, etc.;--considering all that, it follows that even these hours could be considerably lowered, or the demand for wealth could be considerably increased. None will venture to claim that no more and unforeseen progress, and considerable progress, at that, is possible in the process of production, thus furnis.h.i.+ng still greater advantages. But the issue now is to satisfy a ma.s.s of wants felt by all that to-day are satisfied only by a minority. With higher culture ever newer wants arise, and these too should be met. We repeat it: _the new Social order is not to live in proletarian style; it lives as a highly developed people demand to live, and it makes the demand in all its members from the first to the last_. But such a people can not rest content with satisfying merely its material wants. All its members are to be allowed fullest leisure for their development in the arts and sciences, as well as for their recreation.

Also in other important respects will Socialist society differ from the bourgeois individualist system. The motto: "Cheap and bad"--which is and must be standard for a large portion of bourgeois production, seeing that the larger part of the customers can buy only cheap goods, that quickly wear out--likewise drops out. Only the best will be produced; it will last longer and will need replacing at only wider intervals. The follies and insanities of fas.h.i.+on, promoted by wastefulness and tastelessness, also cease. People will probably clothe themselves more properly and sightfully than to-day, when, be it said in pa.s.sing, the fas.h.i.+ons of the last hundred years, especially as to men, distinguish themselves by their utter tastelessness. No longer will a new fas.h.i.+on be introduced every three months, an act of folly that stands in intimate relation with the compet.i.tive struggle of women among themselves, with the ostentatiousness and vanity of society, and with the necessity for the display of wealth. To-day a ma.s.s of establishments and people live upon this folly of fas.h.i.+on, and are compelled by their own interests to stimulate and force it. Together with the folly of fas.h.i.+on in dress, falls the folly of fas.h.i.+on in the style of architecture. Eccentricity reaches here its worst expression. Styles of architecture that required centuries for their development and that sprang up among different peoples--we are no longer satisfied with European styles, we go to the j.a.panese, Indians and Chinese--are used up in a few decades and laid aside. Our poor professional artists no longer know whither and whereto they should turn with and for their samples and models. Hardly have they a.s.sorted themselves with one style, and expect to recover with ease the outlays they have made, when a new style breaks in upon them, and demands new sacrifices of time and money, of mental and physical powers.

The nervousness of the age is best reflected in the rush from one fas.h.i.+on to the other, from one style to the other. No one will dare to claim any sense for such hurrying and scurrying, or the merit of its being a symptom of social health.

_Socialism alone will re-introduce a greater stability in the habits of life._ It will make repose and enjoyment possible; it will be a liberator from hurry and excessive exertion. Nervousness, that scourge of our age, will disappear.

But labor is also to be made pleasant. To that end practical and tastefully contrived workshops are required; the utmost precautions against danger; the removal of disagreeable odors, gases and smoke,--in short, of all sources of injury or discomfort to health. At the start, the new social system will carry on production with the old means, inherited from the old. But these are utterly inadequate. Numerous and unsuitable workshops, disintegrated in all directions; imperfect tools and machinery, running through all the stages of usefulness;--this heap is insufficient both for the number of the workers and for their demands of comfort and of pleasure. The establishment of a large number of s.p.a.cious, light, airy, fully equipped and ornamented workshops is a pressing need. Art, technique, skill of head and hand immediately find a wide field of activity. All departments in the building of machinery, in the fas.h.i.+oning of tools, in architecture and in the branches of work connected with the internal equipment of houses have the amplest opportunity. Whatever human genius can invent with regard to comfortable and pleasant homes, proper ventilation, lighting and heating, mechanical and technical provisions and cleanliness is brought into application.

The saving of motor power, heating, lighting, time, as well as the promotion of all that tends to render work and life agreeable, demand a suitable concentration of the fields of labor on certain spots.

Habitations are separated from places of work and are freed from the disagreeable features of industrial and other manual work. These disagreeable features are, in their turn, reduced to the lowest measure possible by means of suitable arrangements and provisions of all sorts, until wholly removed. The present state of technique has now means enough at command to wholly free from danger the most dangerous occupations, such as mining and the preparation of chemicals, etc. But these means can not be applied in capitalist society because they are expensive, and there is no obligation to do more than what is absolutely necessary for the workingman. The discomforts attached to mining can be removed by means of a different sort of draining, of extensive ventilation, of electric lighting, of a material reduction of hours of work, and of frequent s.h.i.+fts. Nor does it require any particular cleverness to find such protective means as would render building accidents almost impossible, and transform work in that line into the most exhilarating of all. Ample protections against sun and rain are possible in the construction of the largest edifices. Furthermore, in a society with ample labor-power at its disposal, such as Socialist society would be, frequent s.h.i.+fts and the concentration of certain work upon certain seasons of the year and certain hours of day would be an easy matter.

The problem of removing dust, smoke, soot and odors could likewise be completely solved by modern chemistry and technique; it is solved only partially or not at all, simply because the private employers care not to make the necessary sacrifice of funds. The work-places of the future, wherever located, whether above or under ground, will, accordingly, distinguish themselves most favorably from those of to-day. Many contrivances are, under the existing system of private enterprise, first of all, a question of money: can the business bear the expenditure? Will it pay? If the answer is in the negative, then let the workingmen go to pieces. Capital does not operate where there is no profit. Humanity is not an "issue" on the Exchange.[181]

The question of "profit" has exhausted its _role_ in Socialist society: _in Socialist society the only consideration is the welfare of its members_. Whatever is beneficent to these and protects them must be introduced; whatever injures them must stop. None is forced to join in a dangerous game. If matters are undertaken that have dangers in prospect, volunteers will be numerous, all the more so seeing that the object can never be to the injury, but only to the promotion of civilization.

The amplest application of motor powers and of the best machinery and implements, the utmost subdivision of labor, and the most efficient combinations of labor-power will, accordingly, carry production to such pitch that the hours of work can be materially reduced in the production of the necessaries of life. The capitalist lengthens the hours of labor, whenever he can, especially during crises, when the worker's power of resistance is broken, and by squeezing more surplus values out of him, prices may be lowered. In Socialist society, an increase of production accrues to the benefit of all: _The share of each rises with the productivity of labor and increased productivity again makes possible the reduction of the hours of work, socially determined as necessary._

Among the motor powers that are coming into application, electricity will, according to all appearances, take a decisive place.[182]

Capitalist society is now everywhere engaged in harnessing it to its service. The more extensively this is done the better. The revolutionizing effect of this mightiest of all the powers of Nature will but all the sooner snap the bonds of bourgeois society, and open the doors to Socialism. But only in Socialist society will electricity attain its fullest and most widespread application. If the prospects now opened for its application are even but partially realized--and on that head there can be no doubt--electricity, as a motor power as well as a source of light and heat, will contribute immeasurably towards the improvement of the conditions of life. Electricity distinguishes itself from all other motor power in that, above all, its supply in Nature is abundant. Our water courses, the ebb and tide of the sea, the winds, the sun-light--all furnish innumerable horse-powers, the moment we know how to utilize them in full. Through the invention of acc.u.mulators it has been proved that large volumes of power, which can be appropriated only periodically, from the ebbs and tides, the winds and mountain streams, can be stored up and kept for use at any given place and any given time.

All these inventions and discoveries are still in embryo: their full development may be surmised, but can not be forecast in detail.

The progress expected from the application of electricity sounds like a fairy tale. Mr. Meems of Baltimore has planned an electric wagon able to travel 300 kilometers an hour--actually race with the wind. Nor does Mr.

Meems stand alone. Prof. Elihu Thomson of Lynn, Ma.s.s., also believes it possible to construct electromotors of a velocity of 160 kilometers, and, with suitable strengthening of the rolling stock and improvement of the signal system, of a velocity of 260 kilometers; and he has given a plausible explanation of his system. The same scientist holds, and in this Werner Siemens, who expressed similar views at the Berlin Convention of Naturalists in 1887, agrees with him, that it is possible by means of electricity _to transform the chemical elements directly into food_--a revolution that would hoist capitalist society off its hinges. While in 1887 Werner Siemens was of the opinion that it was possible, though only in the remote future, to produce artificially a hydrate of carbon such as grape sugar and later the therewith closely related starch, whereby "bread could be made out of stone," the chemist Dr. B. Meyer claims that ligneous fibre could eventually be turned into a source of human food. Obviously, we are moving towards ever newer chemical and technical revolutions. In the meantime, the physiologist E.

Eiseler has actually produced grape sugar artificially, and thus made a discovery that, in 1887, Werner Siemens considered possible only in the "remote future." In the spring of 1894, the French ex-Minister of Public Wors.h.i.+p, Prof. Berthelot, delivered an address in Paris at the banquet of the a.s.sociation of Chemical Manufacturers upon the significance of chemistry in the future. The address is interesting in more respects than one. Prof. Berthelot sketched the probable state of chemistry at about the year 2000. While his sketch contains many a droll exaggeration, it does contain so much that is serious and sound that we shall present it in extract. After describing the achievements of chemistry during the last few decades, Prof. Berthelot went on to say:--

"The manufacture of sulphuric acids and of soda, bleaching and coloring, beet sugar, therapeutic alkaloids, gas, gilding and silvering, etc.; then came electro-chemistry, whereby metallurgy was radically revolutionized; thermo-chemistry and the chemistry of explosives, whereby fresh energy was imparted to mining and to war; the wonders of organic chemistry in the production of colors, of flavors, of therapeutic and antiseptic means, etc. But all that is only a start: soon much more important problems are to be solved. About the year 2000 there will be no more agriculture and no more farmers: chemistry will have done away with the former cultivation of the soil. There will be no more coal-shafts, consequently, neither will there be any more miners'

strikes. Fuel is produced by chemical and physical processes. Tariffs and wars are abolished: aerial navigation, that helped itself to chemicals as motor power, p.r.o.nounced the sentence of death upon those obsolete habits. The whole problem of industry then consists in discovering sources of power, that are inexhaustible and resortable to with little labor. Until now we have produced steam through the chemical energy of burning mineral coal. But mineral coal is hard to get and its supply decreases daily. Attention must be turned towards utilizing the heat of the sun and of the earth's crust. The hope is justified that both sources will be drawn upon without limit. The boring of a shaft 3,000 to 4,000 meters deep does not exceed the power of modern, less yet it will exceed that of future engineers. The source of all heat and of all industry would be thus thrown open. Add water to that, and all imaginable machinery may be put in perpetual operation on earth: the source of this power would experience hardly any diminution in hundreds of years.

"With the aid of the earth's heat, numerous chemical problems will become solvable, among these the greatest of all--_the chemical production of food_. In principle, the problem is solved now. The synthesis of fats and oils has been long known; likewise are sugar and hydrates of carbon known; nor will it be long before the secret of compounding azote is out. The food problem is a purely chemical one.

The day when the corresponding cheap power shall have been obtained, food of all sort will be producable with carbon out of carbon oxides, and with hydrogen and acids out of water, and with nitrogen out of the atmosphere. What until now vegetation has done, industry will thenceforth perform, and more perfectly than Nature itself. The time will come when everyone will carry about him a little box of chemicals wherewith to provide his food supply of alb.u.men, fat and hydrates of carbon, regardless of the hour of the day or the season of the year, regardless of rain or drought, of frost or hail, or insects. A revolution will then set in of which no conception is so far possible.

Fields bearing fruit, wine-bearing mountain slopes and pastures for cattle will have vanished. Man will have gained in gentleness and morality seeing he no longer lives on the murder and destruction of living beings. Then also will the difference drop away between fertile and barren districts; perchance deserts may then become the favorite homes of man being healthier than the damp valleys and the swamp-infected plains. Then also will Art, together with all the beauties of human life reach full development. No longer will the face of earth be marred, so to speak, with geometrical figures, now entailed by agriculture: it will become a garden in which, at will, gra.s.s or flowers, bush or woods, can be allowed to grow, and in which the human race will live in plenty, in a Golden Age. Nor will man thereby sink into indolence and corruption. Work is requisite to happiness, and man will work as much as ever, because he will be working for himself aiming at the highest development of his mental, moral and esthetical powers."

Every reader may accept what he please of this address of Prof.

Berthelot; certain, however, is the prospect that in the future and in virtue of the progress of science, wealth--the volume and variety of products--will increase enormously, and that the pleasures of life of the coming generations will take undreamed of increment.

An aspiration, deeply implanted in the nature of man, is that of freedom in the choice and change of occupation. As uninterrupted repet.i.tion renders the daintiest of dishes repulsive, so with a daily treadmill-like recurring occupation: it dulls and relaxes the senses.

Man then does only mechanically what he must do; he does it without swing or enjoyment. There are latent in all men faculties and desires that need but to be awakened and developed to produce the most beautiful results. Only then does man become fully and truly man. Towards the satisfaction of this need of change, Socialist society offers, as will be shown, the fullest opportunity. The mighty increase of productive powers, coupled with an ever progressing simplification of the process of labor, not only enables a considerable lowering of hours of work, it also _facilitates the acquisition of skill in many directions_.

The old apprentice system has survived its usefulness: it exists to-day only and is possible only in backward, old-fas.h.i.+oned forms of production, as represented by the small handicrafts. Seeing, however, that this vanishes from the new social Order, all the inst.i.tutions and forms peculiar thereto vanish along with it. New ones step in. Every factory shows us to-day how few are its workingmen, still engaged at a work that they have been apprenticed in. The employes are of the most varied, heterogeneous trades; a short time suffices to train them in any sub-department of work, at which, in accord with the ruling system of exploitation, they are then kept at work longer hours, without change or regard to their inclinations, and, lashed to the machine, become themselves a machine.[183] Such a state of things has no place in a changed organization of society. There is ample time for the acquisition of dexterity of hand and the exercise of artistic skill. s.p.a.cious training schools, equipped with all necessary comforts and technical perfections will facilitate to young and old the acquisition of any trade. Chemical and physical laboratories, up to all the demands of these sciences, and furnished with ample staffs of instructors will be in existence. Only then will be appreciated to its full magnitude what a world of ambitions and faculties the capitalist system of production suppresses, or forces awry into mistaken paths.[184]

It is not merely possible to have a regard for the need of change; it is the purpose of society to realize its satisfaction: the harmonious growth of man depends upon that. The professional physiognomies that modern society brings to the surface--whether the profession be in certain occupations of some sort or other, or in gluttony and idleness, or in compulsory tramping--will gradually vanish. There are to-day precious few people with any opportunity of change in their occupations, or who exercise the same. Occasionally, individuals are found who, favored by circ.u.mstances, withdraw from the routine of their daily pursuits and, after having paid their tribute to physical, recreate themselves with intellectual work; and conversely, brain workers are met off and on, who seek and find change in physical labors of some sort or other, handwork, gardening, etc. Every hygienist will confirm the invigorating effect of a pursuit that rests upon alternating physical and mental work; only such a pursuit is natural. The only qualification is that it be moderately indulged, and in proportion to the strength of the individual.

Leo Tolstoi lashes the hypertrophic and unnatural character that art and science have a.s.sumed under the unnatural conditions of modern society.[185] He severely condemns the contempt for physical labor, entertained in modern society, and he recommends a return to natural conditions. Every being, who means to live according to the laws of nature and enjoy life, should divide the day between, first, physical field labor; secondly, hand work; thirdly, mental work; fourthly, cultured and companionable intercourse. More than eight hours' physical work should not be done. Tolstoi, who practices this system of life, and who, as he says, has felt himself human only since he put it into practice, perceives only what is possible to him, a rich, independent man, but wholly impossible to the large ma.s.s of mankind, under existing conditions. The person who must do hard physical work every day ten, twelve and more hours, to gain a meager existence, and who was brought up in ignorance, can not furnish himself with the Tolstoian system of life. Neither can they, who are on the firing line of business life and are compelled to submit to its exactions. The small minority who could imitate Tolstoi have, as a rule, no need to do so. It is one of the illusions that Tolstoi yields to, the belief that social systems can be changed by preaching and example. The experiences made by Tolstoi with his system of life prove how rational the same is; in order, however, to introduce such a system of life as a social custom, a social foundation is requisite other than the present. It requires a new society.

_Future society will have such a foundation; it will have scientists and artists of all sorts in abundance; but all of them will work physically a part of the day, and devote the rest, according to their liking, to study, the arts or companionable intercourse._[186]

The existing contrast between mental and manual labor--a contrast that the ruling cla.s.ses seek to render as p.r.o.nounced as possible with the view of securing for themselves also the intellectual means of sovereignty--will likewise be removed.

It follows from the preceding arguments that crises and compulsory idleness are impossible phenomena in the new social Order. Crises arise from the circ.u.mstance that individualist, capitalist production--incited by profit and devoid of all reliable gauge with which to ascertain the actual demand--brings an overstocking of the world's market, and thus overproduction. The merchandise feature of the products under capitalism, of the products that their owners endeavor to exchange, makes the use of the product dependent upon the consumer's _capacity to buy_. The capacity to buy is, however, limited, in so far as the overwhelming majority are concerned, they being under-paid for their labor, or even wholly unable to sell the same if the capitalist does not happen to be able to squeeze a surplus value out of it. _The capacity to buy and the capacity to consume are two wholly distinct things in capitalist society._ Many millions of people are in want of clothes, shoes, furniture, linen, eatables and drinkables, but they have no money, and their wants, i. e., their capacity to consume, remains unsatisfied. The market is glutted with goods, but the ma.s.ses suffer hunger; they are willing to work, but they find none to buy their labor-power because the holder of money sees nothing to "make" in the purchase. "Die, canaille; become vagabonds, criminals! I, the capitalist, can not help it. I have no use for goods that I have no purchaser to buy from me with corresponding profit." And, in a way, the man is right.

In the new social Order this contradiction is wiped out. Socialist society produces not "merchandise," in order to "buy" and to "sell;" _it produces necessaries of life, that are used, consumed, and otherwise have no object_. In Socialist society, accordingly, the capacity to consume is not bounded, as in bourgeois society, by the individual's capacity to buy; _it is bounded by the collective capacity to produce_.

If labor and instruments of labor are in existence, all wants can be satisfied; the social capacity to consume is bounded only by _the satisfaction of the consumers_.

There being no "merchandise" in Socialist society, neither can there be any "money." Money is the visible contrast of merchandise; yet itself is merchandise! Money, though itself merchandise, is at the same time the social equivalent for all other articles of merchandise. But Socialist society produces no articles of merchandise, only articles of use and necessity, whose production requires a certain measure of social labor.

The time, on an average requisite for the production of an article is the only standard by which it is measured for social use. Ten minutes social labor in one article are equal to ten minutes social labor in another--neither more nor less. Society is not "on the make"; it only seeks to effect among its members the exchange of articles of equal quality, equal utility. It need not even set up a standard of use value.

It merely produces what it needs. If society finds that a three-hour work day is requisite for the production of all that is needed, it establishes such a term of work.[187] If the methods of production improve in such wise that the supply can be raised in two hours, the two-hour work day is established. If, on the contrary, society demands the gratification of higher wants than, despite the increase of forces and the improved productivity of the process of labor, can be satisfied with two or three hours work, then the four-hour day is introduced. Its will is law.

How much social labor will be requisite for the production of any article is easily computed.[188] The relation of the part to the whole of the working time is measured accordingly. Any voucher--a printed piece of paper, gold or tin--certifies to the time spent in work, and enables its possessor to exchange it for articles of various kinds.[189]

If he finds that his wants are smaller than what he receives for his labor, he then works proportionally shorter hours. If he wishes to give away what he does not consume, nothing hinders him. If he is disposed to work for another out of his own free will, so that the latter may revel in the _dolce far niente_,--if he chooses to be such a blockhead, nothing hinders him. But none can compel him to work for another; none can withhold from him a part of what is due him for labor performed.

Everyone can satisfy all his legitimate desires--only not at the expense of others. He receives the equivalent of what he has rendered to society--neither more nor less, and he remains free from all exploitation by third parties.

"But what becomes of the difference between the lazy and the industrious? between the intelligent and the stupid?" That is one of the princ.i.p.al questions from our opponents, and the answer gives them no slight headache. That this distinction between the "lazy" and the "industrious," the "intelligent" and the "stupid" is not made in our civil service hierarchy, but that the term of service decides in the matter of salary and generally of promotion also--these are facts that occur to none of these would-be puzzlers and wiseacres. The teachers, the professors--and as a rule the latter are the silliest questioners--move into their posts, not according to their own qualities, but according to the salaries that these posts bring. That promotions in the army and in the hierarchies of the civil service and the learned professions are often made, not according to worth, but according to birth, friends.h.i.+p and female influence, is a matter of public notoriety. That, however, wealth also is not measured by diligence and intelligence may be judged by the Berlin inn-keepers, bakers and butchers, to whom grammar often is a mystery, and who figure in the first of the three cla.s.ses of the Prussian electorate, while the intellectuals of Berlin, the men of science, the highest magistrates of the Empire and the State, vote with the second cla.s.s. There is not now any difference between the "lazy" and the "diligent," the "intelligent"

and the "stupid" for the simple reason that what is understood by these terms exists no longer. A "lazy" fellow society only calls him who has been thrown out of work, is compelled to lead a vagabond's life and finally does become a vagabond, or who, grown up under improper training, sinks into vice. But to style "lazy fellow" the man who rolls in money and kills the day with idleness or debauchery, would be an insult: he is a "worthy and good man."

How do matters stand in Socialist society? All develop under equal conditions, and each is active in that to which inclination and skill point him, whence differences in work will be but insignificant.[190]

The intellectual and moral atmosphere of society, which stimulates all to excel one another, likewise aids in equalizing such differences. If any person finds that he cannot do as much as others on a certain field, he chooses another that corresponds with his strength and faculties.

Whoever has worked with a large number of people in one establishment knows that men who prove themselves unfit and useless in a certain line, do excellent work in another. There is no normally constructed being who fails to meet the highest demands in one line or another, the moment he finds himself in the right place. By what right does any claim precedence over another? If any one has been treated so step-motherly by Nature that with the best will he can not do what others can, _Society has no right to punish him for the shortcomings of Nature_. If, on the contrary, a person has received from Nature gifts that raise him above others, _Society is not obliged to reward what is not his personal desert_. In Socialist society all enjoy equal conditions of life and opportunities for education; all are furnished the same opportunities to develop their knowledge and powers according to their respective capacities and inclinations. In this lies a further guarantee that not only will the standard of culture and powers be higher in Socialist than in bourgeois society, but also that both will be more equally distributed and yet be much more manifold.

When, on a journey up the Rhine, Goethe studied the Cathedral of Cologne, he discovered in the archives that the old master-builders paid their workmen equal wages for equal time. They did so because they wished to get good and conscientious work. This looks like an anomaly to modern bourgeois society. It introduced the system of piece-work, that drives the workingmen to out-work one another, and thus aids the employer in underpaying and in reducing wages.

As with manual, so with mental work. Man is the product of the time and circ.u.mstances that he lives in. A Goethe, born under equally favorable conditions in the fourth, instead of the eighteenth, century might have become, instead of a distinguished poet and naturalist, a great Father of the Church, who might have thrown St. Augustine into the shade. If, on the other hand, instead of being the son of a rich Frankfort patrician, Goethe had been born the son of a poor shoemaker of the same town, he never would have become the Minister of the Grand Duke of Weimar, but would probably have remained a shoemaker, and died an honorable member of the craft. Goethe himself recognized the advantage he had in being born in a materially and socially favorable station in order to reach his stage of development. It so appears in his "Wilhelm Meister." Were Napoleon I. born ten years later, he never would have been Emperor of France. Without the war of 1870-1871, Gambetta had never become what he did become. Place the naturally gifted child of intelligent parents among savages, and he becomes a savage. _Whatever a man is, society has made him._ Ideas are not creations that spring from the head of the individual out of nothing, or through inspiration from above; they are products of social life, of the _Spirit of the Age_, raised in the head of the individual. An Aristotle could not possibly have the ideas of a Darwin, and a Darwin could not choose but think otherwise than an Aristotle. Man thinks according as the Spirit of the Age, i. e., his surroundings and the phenomena that they present to him drive him to think. Hence the experience of different people often thinking simultaneously the same thing, of the same inventions and discoveries being made simultaneously in places far apart from each other. Hence also the fact that an idea, uttered fifty years too early, leaves the world cold; fifty years later, sets it ablaze. Emperor Sigismund could risk breaking his word to Huss in 1415 and order him burned in Constance; Charles V., although a more violent fanatic, was compelled to allow Luther to depart in peace from the Reichstag at Worms in 1521. Ideas are, accordingly, the product of combined social causes and social life. What is true of society in general, is true in particular of the several cla.s.ses that, at given historic epochs, const.i.tute society. As each cla.s.s has its special interests, it also has its special ideas and views, that lead to those cla.s.s struggles of which recorded history is full, and that reach their climax in the cla.s.s antagonisms and cla.s.s struggles of modern days. Hence, it depends not merely upon the age in which a man lives, but also upon the social stratum of a certain age in which he lived or lives, and whereby his feelings, thoughts and actions are determined.