Part
II: The Mechanism of the Classical Ideal
CHAPTER III
UNEMPLOYMENT-OR
LEISURE?
IT was pointed out in Chapter
VI, Part One, that there are two separate and distinct inducements
to what is called employment. The first of these inducements
is involved in the necessity under which humanity labours to
provide itself with bed, board, clothes, and such so-called
luxuries as are effective in setting free individual energies.
That is an elemental necessity imposed by the natural conditions
of our existence, and it is a primary necessity, in the sense
that until it has been met we are not free to devote our attention
to other matters. It is incontestable that the most efficient
method of dealing with this primary necessity so far evolved
is by co-operative methods such as have been incorporated in
the industrial system of the past hundred years or so.
But
the second necessity under which men and women labour, after
the primary necessity has been met, can broadly be described
as the satisfaction of the artistic instinct; which can be further
analysed and defined as the incorporation in material forms
of ideals conceived in the mind.
It
is one of the numberless evidences of the skill and knowledge
of human nature which is resident in what we have called the
Invisible Government, that these two human necessities are confused
in many arguments which proceed from apparently divergent
authorities on industrial and social questions, which arguments, when analysed, may be seen to buttress the classical
ideal. Until recently, the statement that a large body of
the public lived on the verge of starvation, because it was
unemployed, and that, therefore, the problem of the modern
world was the abolition of unemployment, received almost universal
assent. It is fair to say that opinion is no longer so unanimous
on this matter; and in consequence, from the position of being
stated as an axiom, it may be observed that it is receding
into the position of a proposition to be proved, and the confusion
to which we have just referred is more or less successfully
invoked to this end. Heavy taxation, bankruptcy, and general
industrial stagnation are paraded by the Press and the average
business man to support the statement that "markets must be
found for our goods." Such "Labour Leaders" as Mr. J. H. Thomas
have been tireless in explaining with somewhat unctuous rectitude
that their constituents desire work, not doles. It is important
to examine what may be behind this statement, and in order to
do this, and because those for whom Labour Leaders are supposed
to speak are much in the public eye as the sufferers by unemployment,
we may begin by examining that form of distribution of purchasing-power
popularly called the "Dole."
In
the first place, the term "Dole" carries with it a definite
stigma as of an allowance made by charity to persons unable
to help themselves. It carries the smallest possible suggestion
of self-respecting independence. The origin of this designation
as applied to the unemployment allowance is obscure (more particularly
having in view the fact that it is based on compulsory unemployment
insurance to which both employer and employed contribute), but
it may be assumed that it did not, like Topsy, grow out of nothing.
The payment of the thing itself is hedged round with such forms
of indignity and inconvenience as the official mind, with every
stimulus to activity, can devise, and although fundamentally
when it ceases to be an insurance claim the dole is a small
dividend on the National Income - a forerunner of "Dividends
for All" - it is certainly the Cinderella of dividends, and
is treated accordingly. Collectively, it is put in the foreground
as being one of the chief sources of expense contributing to
the burden of taxation under which the rest of the community
is struggling, and thus has the effect of creating a feeling
of hostility against its unfortunate recipients, which may be
compared with the orthodox Socialist outcry against other and
more familiar forms of dividend. The enforced leisure enjoyed
by those who participate in it, is rendered practically valueless
by the regulations which surround it. To be seen doing an hour's
casual work is to render a member of the unemployed liable to
penal servitude for fraud, and the passport system of Russia
was simple in comparison with the forms necessary to regularise
half a day's wood-cutting by an individual registered at a Labour
Exchange. And it must be borne in mind that the dole does not
represent anything but a claim on goods of the simplest description,
of which the persons from whom it is collected in taxation already
have enough for their needs, and thus are merely, and uselessly,
restricted from the satisfaction of further requirements which
would provide the "employment" said to be lacking.
And
yet in spite of all this it is notorious that to be unemployed
and drawing the dole for any length of time, means in all probability
that the individual concerned will never seriously compete for
steady employment again under the conditions which exist at
present. That is to say, given the satisfaction of the primary
necessity for bed, board, and clothes, even under the most disadvantageous
conditions, the human individual can find more attractive forms
of outlet for his activities than those which are afforded by
the present-day industrial system, taking into consideration
its hours of work, remuneration and general amenities; and it
requires the assurance chiefly found in millionaires, to assess
the comparative value of such activities either to the individual
or the community, under the conditions which exist in the world
to-day. It may be said that at any rate they do not accelerate
the progress towards another Great War, which would be the result
of general employment in production for export.
Now
it is fair to say that Labour leaders are, although they may
not consciously know it, amongst the most valuable assets of
the financial control of industry - are, in fact, almost indispensable
to that control; and the reason for this is not far to seek.
They do not speak as the representatives of individuals, they
speak, as they are never tired of explaining, as the representatives
of Labour, and the more Labour there is, the more they represent.
It is natural that employment should be represented by them
as being the chief interest of man; as the representatives of
the employed, their importance is enhanced thereby. As a consequence,
the battle between the employing interests and the Labour leaders
who claim to represent the employed is, and must be, fundamentally,
a stage battle, since there is a consensus of opinion on both
sides that what is wanted is more employment. There is nothing
like leather.
Considering
the matter always from a practical point of view, it must be
evident that the soundness of this stress on the prime necessity
for continuous and general employment, using that term in the
narrow sense of commercial employment for wages, rests on quite
other grounds than the use of employment as a means for distributing
wages - can, in fact, only rest on the premises of either the
Modernist or the Classical idea. In regard to the first of these,
it is obviously dependent on how much human effort is necessary
at the present stage of industrial progress to produce a generally
satisfactory standard of material civilisation, and the proportion
that the amount of human labour necessary for this purpose bears
to the number of individuals who are willing, without pressure
of any kind, to employ a reasonable proportion of their time
in meeting this requirement. It has previously been suggested
that the facts in relation to this situation do not furnish
any justification for suggesting that even a large number of
commercially unemployed necessarily threatens the material welfare
of the community and there is a large amount of sound evidence
pointing in the opposite direction.
But
we can go further. It is not sufficient to say that the unemployment
problem, as distinct from the distribution problem, is largely
a delusion. As we have seen in the immediately preceding chapters,
there is an employment problem in the sense that our financial
mechanism does not bear any specific relation to, nor fundamentally
does it take any account of, the introduction into the equation
of production of solar energy in its various forms. To put the
matter another way, if the unemployment problem were solved
to-morrow, and every individual capable of employment were employed
and paid according to the existing canons of the financial system,
the result could only be to precipitate an economic and political
catastrophe of the first magnitude, either through the fantastic
rise of prices which would be inevitable, or because of the
military consequences of an enhanced struggle for export markets.
Why,
then, is there so great a misdirection of attention in a matter
of such primary importance? There is, I think, only one general
and comprehensive answer which can be given to this question;
and that is, that whether consciously or not, there is a widespread
feeling on the part of executives of all descriptions that the
only method by which large masses of human beings can be kept
in agreement with dogmatic moral and social ideals, is by arranging
that they shall be kept so hard at work that they have not the
leisure or even the desire to think for themselves.
The
matter is rarely stated in so many words. It is more generally
suggested that leisure, meaning by that, freedom from employment
forced by economic necessity, is in itself detrimental; a statement
which is flagrantly contradicted by all the evidence available
on the subject. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that 75
per cent of the ideas and inventions, to which mankind is indebted
for such progress as has been so far achieved, can be directly
or indirectly traced to persons who by some means were freed
from the necessity of regular, and in the ordinary sense, economic
employment, in spite of the fact that such persons have never
been more than a small minority of the general population. Even
where transcendent genius has been able to overcome the limitations
of financial stringency, it is probable that the results achieved
have been nothing like those which would have enriched the world
had those barriers been non-existent. To use a somewhat homely
simile, it is common knowledge that every racing stable produces
a higher percentage of "weeds" than potential Derby winners;
but he would surely be foolish who would suggest that the way
to get more Derby winners would be to work horses of every description
at the plough. It is probably true that there is an appreciable
percentage of the population in respect of which any sudden
access of material prosperity would be attended with considerable
risk, and for that reason the transition from a state of artificial
scarcity such as exists at the present time, to a state of prosperity,
is most desirably accomplished by methods which do not too suddenly
invest such persons with powers which they have not learnt to
use. But to suggest that an obsolete and outgrown system of
organisation, must be retained because of this risk, is to refuse
to develop the railway, because of its detrimental effect upon
the stage coach.
We
are thus, I think, justified in concluding that this misplaced
emphasis on "Unemployment" can be explained only by reference
to theories which are "Moral" rather than "Economic"; and
we are not obliged to take the "Morals" of the Labour leader
as proceeding from a source other than that to which we can
trace his Economics.