第34章 WORK AND PAY(7)

Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.'' The Socialist theory is that, in general, work alone gives the right to the enjoyment of the produce of work.To this theory there will, of course, be exceptions: the old and the very young, the infirm and those whose work is temporarily not required through no fault of their own.But the fundamental conception of Socialism, in regard to our present question, is that all who can should be compelled to work, either by the threat of starvation or by the operation of the criminal law.And, of course, the only kind of work recognized will be such as commends itself to the authorities.Writing books against Socialism, or against any theory embodied in the government of the day, would certainly not be recognized as work.No more would the painting of pictures in a different style from that of the Royal Academy, or producing plays unpleasing to the censor.Any new line of thought would be banned, unless by influence or corruption the thinker could crawl into the good graces of the pundits.These results are not foreseen by Socialists, because they imagine that the Socialist State will be governed by men like those who now advocate it.This is, of course, a delusion.The rulers of the State then will bear as little resemblance to the pres- ent Socialists as the dignitaries of the Church after the time of Constantine bore to the Apostles.The men who advocate an unpopular reform are exceptional in disinterestedness and zeal for the public good; but those who hold power after the reform has been carried out are likely to belong, in the main, to the ambitious executive type which has in all ages possessed itself of the government of nations.And this type has never shown itself tolerant of opposition or friendly to freedom.

[45] ``While holding this synthetic view on production, the Anarchists cannot consider, like the Collectivists, that a remuneration which would be proportionate to the hours of labor spent by each person in the production of riches may be an ideal, or even an approach to an ideal, society.'' Kropotkin, ``Anarchist Communism,'' p.20.

It would seem, then, that if the Anarchist plan has its dangers, the Socialist plan has at least equal dangers.It is true that the evils we have been foreseeing under Socialism exist at present, but the purpose of Socialists is to cure the evils of the world as it is; they cannot be contentwith the argument that they would make things no worse.

Anarchism has the advantage as regards liberty, Socialism as regards the inducements to work.Can we not find a method of combining these two advantages? It seems to me that we can.

We saw that, provided most people work in moderation, and their work is rendered as productive as science and organization can make it, there is no good reason why the necessaries of life should not be supplied freely to all.Our only serious doubt was as to whether, in an Anarchist regime, the motives for work would be sufficiently powerful to prevent a dan- gerously large amount of idleness.But it would be easy to decree that, though necessaries should be free to all, whatever went beyond necessaries should only be given to those who were willing to work--not, as is usual at present, only to those in work at any moment, but also to all those who, when they happened not to be working, were idle through no fault of their own.We find at present that a man who has a small income from investments, just sufficient to keep him from actual want, almost always prefers to find some paid work in order to be able to afford luxuries.So it would be, presumably, in such a community as we are imagining.At the same time, the man who felt a vocation for some unrecognized work of art or science or thought would be free to follow his desire, provided he were willing to ``scorn delights and live laborious days.'' And the comparatively small number of men with an invincible horror of work--the sort of men who now become tramps-- might lead a harmless existence, without any grave danger of their becoming sufficiently numerous to be a serious burden upon the more industrious.In this ways the claims of freedom could be combined with the need of some economic stimulus to work.Such a system, it seems to me, would have a far greater chance of success than either pure Anarchism or pure orthodox Socialism.

Stated in more familiar terms, the plan we are advocating amounts essentially to this: that a certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income, as much larger as might be warranted by the total amount of commodities produced, should be given to those who are willing to engagein some work which the community recognizes as useful.On this basis we may build further.I do not think it is always necessary to pay more highly work which is more skilled or regarded as socially more useful, since such work is more interesting and more respected than ordinary work, and will therefore often be preferred by those who are able to do it.But we might, for instance, give an intermediate income to those who are only willing to work half the usual number of hours, and an income above that of most workers to those who choose a specially disagreeable trade.Such a system is perfectly compatible with Socialism, though perhaps hardly with Anarchism.Of its advantages we shall have more to say at a later stage.For the present I am content to urge that it combines freedom with justice, and avoids those dangers to the community which we have found to lurk both in the proposals of the Anarchists and in those of orthodox Socialists.