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Woman and Socialism: 5.—Removal of the Contrast between Mental and Manual Work.

Woman and Socialism
5.—Removal of the Contrast between Mental and Manual Work.

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Notes

table of contents
  1. WOMAN AND SOCIALISM
  2. Contents
  3. Introduction.
  4. Woman in the Past.
    1. CHAPTER I. The Position of Woman in Primeval Society.
      1. 1.—Chief Epochs of Primeval History.
      2. 2.—Family Forms.
      3. 3.—The Matriarchate.
    2. CHAPTER II. Conflict between Matriarchate and Patriarchate.
      1. 1.—Rise of the Patriarchate.
      2. 2.—Traces of the Matriarchate in Greek Myths and Dramas.
      3. 3.—Legitimate Wives and Courtesans in Athens.
      4. 4.—Remnants of the Matriarchate in the Customs of Various Nations.
      5. 5.—Rise of the State.—Dissolution of the Gens in Rome.
    3. CHAPTER III. Christianity.
    4. CHAPTER IV. Woman in the Mediaeval Age.
      1. 1.—The Position of Women among the Germans.
      2. 2.—Feudalism and the Right of the First Night.
      3. 3.—The Rise of Cities.—Monastic Affairs.—Prostitution.
      4. 4.—Knighthood and the Veneration of Women.
    5. CHAPTER V. The Reformation.
      1. 1.—Luther.
      2. 2.—Results of the Reformation.—The Thirty Years’ War.
    6. CHAPTER VI. The Eighteenth Century.
      1. 1.—Court Life in Germany.
      2. 2.—Commercialism and the New Marriage Laws.
      3. 3.—The French Revolution and the Rise of Industry.
  5. Woman at the Present Day.
    1. CHAPTER VII. Woman as a Sex Being.
      1. 1.—The Sexual Impulse.
      2. 2.—Celibacy and the Frequency of Suicide.
    2. CHAPTER VIII. Modern Marriage.
      1. 1.—Marriage as a Profession.
      2. 2.—Decline of the Birthrate.
      3. 3.—Mercenary Marriage and the Matrimonial Market.
    3. CHAPTER IX. Disruption of the Family.
      1. 1.—Increase of Divorce.
      2. 2.—Bourgeois and Proletarian Marriage.
    4. CHAPTER X. Marriage as a Means of Support.
      1. 1.—Decline of the Marriage Rate.
      2. 2.—Infanticide and Abortion.
      3. 3.—Education for Marriage.
      4. 4.—The Misery of Present Day Marriages.
    5. CHAPTER XI. The Chances of Matrimony.
      1. 1.—The Numerical Proportion of the Sexes.
      2. 2.—Obstacles to Marriage.—The Excess of Women.
    6. CHAPTER XII. Prostitution a Necessary Social Institution of Bourgeois Society.
      1. 1.—Prostitution and Society.
      2. 2.—Prostitution and the State.
      3. 3.—The White Slave Trade.
      4. 4.—The Increase of Prostitution.—Illegitimate Motherhood.
      5. 5.—Crimes Against Morality and Sexual Diseases.
    7. CHAPTER XIII. Woman in Industry.
      1. 1.—Development and Extension of Female Labor.
      2. 2.—Factory Work of Married Women.—Sweatshop Labor and Dangerous Occupations.
    8. CHAPTER XIV. The Struggle of Women for Education.
      1. 1.—The Revolution in Domestic Life.
      2. 2.—The Intellectual Abilities of Women.
      3. 3.—Differences in Physical and Mental Qualities of Man and Woman.
      4. 4.—Darwinism and the Condition of Society.
      5. 5.—Woman and the Learned Professions.
    9. CHAPTER XV. The Legal Status of Women.
      1. 1.—The Struggle for Equality Before the Law.
      2. 2.—The Struggle for Political Equality.
  6. The State and Society.
    1. CHAPTER XVI. The Class-State and the Modern Proletariat.
      1. 1.—Our Public Life.
      2. 2.—Aggravation of Social Extremes.
    2. CHAPTER XVII. The Process of Concentration in Capitalistic Industry.
      1. 1.—The Displacement of Agriculture by Industry.
      2. 2.—Increasing Pauperization.—Preponderance of Large Industrial Establishments.
      3. 3.—Concentration of Wealth.
    3. CHAPTER XVIII. Crisis and Competition.
      1. 1.—Causes and Effects of the Crises.
      2. 2.—Intermediate Trade and the Increased Cost of Living.
    4. CHAPTER XIX. The Revolution in Agriculture.
      1. 1.—Transatlantic Competition and Desertion of the Country.
      2. 2.—Peasants and Great Landowners.
      3. 3.—The Contrast Between City and Country.
  7. The Socialization of Society.
    1. CHAPTER XX. The Social Revolution.
      1. 1.—The Transformation of Society.
      2. 2.—Expropriation of the Expropriators.
    2. CHAPTER XXI. Fundamental Laws of Socialistic Society.
      1. 1.—Duty to Work of All Able-bodied Persons.
      2. 2.—Harmony of Interests.
      3. 3.—Organization of Labor.
      4. 4.—The Growth of the Productivity of Labor.
      5. 5.—Removal of the Contrast between Mental and Manual Work.
      6. 6.—Increase of Consumption.
      7. 7.—Equal Duty to Work for All.
      8. 8.—Abolition of Trade.—Transformation of Traffic.
    3. CHAPTER XXII. Socialism and Agriculture.
      1. 1.—Abolition of the Private Ownership of Land.
      2. 2.—The Amelioration of Land.
      3. 3.—Changed Methods of Farming.
      4. 4.—Agriculture on a Large and Small Scale.—Electric Appliances.
      5. 5.—Vine-Culture of the Future.
      6. 6.—Measures to Prevent Exhaustion of the Soil.
      7. 7.—Removal of the Contrast between City and Country.
    4. CHAPTER XXIII. Abolition of the State.
    5. CHAPTER XXIV. The Future of Religion.
    6. CHAPTER XXV. The Socialist System of Education.
    7. CHAPTER XXVI. Literature and Art in Socialistic Society.
    8. CHAPTER XXVII. Free Development of Individuality.
      1. 1.—Freedom from Care.
      2. 2.—Changes in the Methods of Nutrition.
      3. 3.—The Communistic Kitchen.
      4. 4.—Transformation of Domestic Life.
    9. CHAPTER XXVIII. Woman in the Future.
    10. CHAPTER XXIX. Internationality.
    11. CHAPTER XXX. The Question of Population and Socialism.
      1. 1.—Fear of Over-Population.
      2. 2.—Production of Over-Population.
      3. 3.—Poverty and Fecundity.
      4. 4.—Lack of Human Beings and Abundance of Food.
      5. 5.—Social Conditions and Reproductive Ability.
  8. Conclusion.
  9. THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE

5.—Removal of the Contrast between Mental and Manual Work.

A need, deeply rooted in human nature, is the desire for freedom of choice and for the opportunity of a variation of occupations. Just as the best food becomes disgusting if the same thing is constantly placed before us, so an occupation repeated daily in treadmill fashion weakens and dulls. Man performs his task mechanically and does what he must do, but without enthusiasm or joy. A number of talents and abilities are innate in every human being that need but to be awakened in order to find expression and produce favorable results. Only thereby man becomes a perfect human being. Socialistic society will offer ample opportunity for the satisfaction of this desire for variation. The immense increase in productive forces, combined with a simplified process of work, will not only make it possible to limit the hours of work considerably, it will also make it easy to master a number of varied accomplishments.

The old system of apprenticeship has already been abandoned. It still exists, and is possible only among undeveloped and antiquated forms of production, as represented by small manufactures. But as these will completely disappear in the new society, all forms and institutions peculiar to them will disappear also. New ones will take their place. Even at present it can be seen in any factory how few workingmen have learned and practice a definite trade. The workingmen employed in some line of production or other may have learned the most varied trades. Usually a short time is sufficient for them to gain experience in one detail of the process of production, and to this one detail they are tied down then, according to the prevailing system of exploitation, for long hours, without the slightest variation, and without any regard for their personal tastes and inclinations. At the machine they become machines.[227] This state of affairs, too, will be removed by the new social order. There will be ample time to practice manual skill and to develop the mechanical arts. Large, splendidly equipped polytechnical schools will make it easy for both young and old to learn an occupation. Chemical and physical laboratories, in keeping with the standards of these sciences, will be erected, and capable teachers will be on hand. Only then will people fully recognize what a wealth of talent and ability has been suppressed or wrongly developed by the capitalistic system of production.[228]

Not only will it be possible to satisfy the desire for variation, it must be regarded as the purpose of society to satisfy this desire, since the harmonious development of man depends upon it.

The professional types that we meet with in present-day society—be these types the product of a definite, one-sided occupation or of laziness—will gradually disappear. There are exceedingly few persons to-day who possess the possibility of a variety of occupations. Rarely one finds persons so favored by special circumstances, that they can escape the monotony of their daily task and can, after the performance of physical work, recuperate by mental work. On the other hand, we sometimes find mental workers who devote part of their time to some manual work, gardening and the like. The beneficial effects of an occupation founded on a variation of mental and physical work are obvious. Such occupation is the only one adapted to natural needs. It is taken for granted, of course, that every occupation must be practiced with moderation and according to individual strength.

In his book on “The Significance of Science and Art,” Count Leo Tolstoi condemns the hypercritical and unnatural character that art and science have assumed as a result of our unnatural social conditions. He roundly condemns the fact that present-day society holds physical labor in contempt and advises a return to natural conditions. He asserts that every human being who wishes to live naturally and to enjoy life should spend his day—firstly, at physical work in agriculture; secondly, at some manual trade; thirdly, at some mental occupation, and fourthly, in intellectual social intercourse. No human being should perform more than eight hours of physical work. Tolstoi himself lived up to this ideal and claimed that he has only become truly human since he adopted this mode of life. But Tolstoi overlooks that what is possible for him, the man of independent means, is not possible for the vast majority of people under present-day conditions. A man or woman who must work ten or twelve hours daily, and sometimes longer, to make a bare living, and who has grown up in ignorance, cannot adopt Tolstoi’s mode of life. Neither can all those adopt it who are in the midst of the struggle for existence and must conform with its requirements; and of the few who might live in this manner, many would not wish to. It is one of the illusions in which Tolstoi indulges, to believe that exhortations and examples might transform societies. The experience made by Tolstoi, in regard to his mode of life, proves it to be a rational one. But to make this mode of life general, different social conditions, a new society, will be needed.

The coming society will establish such conditions. It will produce countless scientists and artists, but all of these will devote a part of the day to physical labor, and the remainder of the day they will devote to their studies, their arts and to social intercourse, according to their tastes and wishes.[229]

The present contrast between mental and manual work, a contrast that is intensified by the ruling classes, who are anxious to secure their mental superiority also, will, accordingly, have to be removed.

[227] “The great mass of workingmen in England, as in most of the other countries, have so little free choice in regard to their occupation and place of residence, they depend so absolutely upon fixed rules and the will of others, as could be possible under any system with the exception of real slavery.” John Stuart Mill—Political Economy.

[228] A French workingman, who has returned home from San Francisco, writes: “I would have never believed that I would be able to practice all the trades that I have practiced in California. I had been firmly convinced that I was good for nothing except printing. But in the midst of these adventurers who change their trade more readily than their shirt, I did as the others. Since mining was not sufficiently remunerative, I left and moved into the city. Here I successively became typographer, slater, plumber, etc. As a result of this experience of being fit for all tasks, I feel less of a mollusc and more of a human being.” Karl Marx—Capital. Vol. I.

[229] What people may achieve under favorable conditions of development is shown, for example, by the life of Leonardo da Vinci. He was a splendid artist, a famous sculpturer, an able architect and engineer, a military engineer, a musician and an extemporizer. Benvenuto Cellini was a famous goldsmith, an excellent modeller, a recognized military engineer, a good soldier and a capable musician. Abraham Lincoln was a wood-cutter, a farmer, a boatsman, a clerk and a lawyer, before he became president of the United States. It may be said without exaggeration that most people are engaged in occupations that are not suited to their abilities because their career has been shaped, not by choice, but by the force of circumstances. Many a poor professor might make a very competent shoemaker, and many a good shoemaker might become a good professor also.

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