7.—Equal Duty to Work for All.

“But how will you discriminate between thrifty and lazy, intelligent and stupid persons?” That is one of the questions most frequently asked by our opponents, and the answer we give them puzzles them greatly. But these wise questioners never stop to think that, among our hierarchy of officials, the distinction between thrifty and lazy, intelligent and stupid persons is not made, but that the length of service usually determines the salary and promotion. Teachers and professors—many of whom are the most naïve questioners—have their salaries determined by the position they fill, not by the value of their services. In many cases officials, military men and scientists, are not promoted according to their abilities, but according to rank, relationship, friendship, and the favor of women. That wealth is not measured either by intelligence and thrift, may be seen by the three-class-electoral-system of Prussia. We find saloon-keepers, bakers and butchers, many of whom are not able to speak grammatically, enrolled in the first class, while men of intelligence and science, the highest officials of the state and the nation, are enrolled in the second or third class. There will be no difference between thrifty and lazy, intelligent and stupid persons, because that which we understand by these terms will have disappeared. Society, for instance, calls some people “lazy” because they have been thrown out of employment, have been driven to a life of vagabondage, and have finally become real vagabonds. We also apply this term to people who are the victims of a bad education. But whoever should venture to call lazy the man of means who spends his time in idleness and debauchery would commit an insult, for the rich idler is a “respectable” man.

Now what aspect will matters assume in the new society? All will develop under similar conditions of life, and everyone will perform the task assigned to him by ability and inclination. Therefore the differences in achievements will be slight.[233] The social atmosphere that will incite each to excel the others will help to level the distinctions. If a person should realize that he is unable to accomplish in one line of work what others accomplish, he will choose some other line better suited to his strength and his abilities. Everyone who has worked together with a great many persons knows that people who were inefficient at one task have proved very efficient when given another. By what right can anyone ask for privileges? If some person is so incapacitated by nature that it is quite impossible for him to accomplish what others accomplish, society cannot punish him for the shortcomings of nature. On the other hand, if some one has been endowed by nature with abilities that elevate him above the others, society need not reward him for that which is not his personal merit. It must, furthermore, be remembered that in Socialistic society all will have the same opportunities for education, so that all can develop their knowledge and ability in accordance with their talents and inclinations. As a result, knowledge and ability will be far more developed than in bourgeois society. It will be more evenly distributed and yet more varied.

When Goethe, during a journey along the Rhine, studied the Cathedral of Cologne, he discovered, by perusal of the architectural deeds that the architects of old had paid all their workingmen alike by time; they did so because they desired good workmanship conscientiously carried out. To bourgeois society this seems an anomaly. Bourgeois society has introduced the piece-work system, by means of which the workingmen compel one another to overwork and make it all the easier for the employer to under-pay and to resort to a frequent reduction in wages. What is true of material productivity is equally true of the mental. Man is the product of time and circumstances. If Goethe had been born in the fourth instead of in the eighteenth century, under equally favorable circumstances, instead of becoming a great poet and scientist he would probably have become a great father of the Church who might have outshone St. Augustine. Again, if Goethe had not come into the world as the son of a rich patrician of Frankfort, but as the son of a poor shoemaker, he would hardly have become minister to the Grand-duke of Weimar, but would have lived and died a respectable master-shoemaker. Goethe himself recognized of what great advantage it was to him to have been born in a materially and socially favorable position which helped him to attain his development; he thus expresses himself in “Wilhelm Meister.” If Napoleon I. had been born ten years later he would never have become Emperor of France. Without the war of 1870 to 1871, Gambetta would never have become what he has been. If a gifted child of intelligent parents should be placed among savages it would become a savage. Men are what society has made them. Ideas are not the product of higher inspiration sprung from the brains of a single individual, but they are a product, created in the brains of the individual by the social life and activity amidst which he lives and by the spirit of his age. Aristotle could not have the ideas of Darwin, and Darwin had to reason differently from Aristotle. We all reason as the spirit of our age—that is, our environment and its phenomena—compels us to reason. That explains what has been frequently observed, that different people sometimes follow the same line of reasoning simultaneously; that the same inventions and discoveries are made at the same time at places situated far apart. That also explains that an idea expressed fifty years ago may have found the world indifferent, but the same idea expressed fifty years later, may agitate the whole world. In 1415 Emperor Sigismund could dare to break the promise given Huss and to have him burned at the stake in Constance. In 1521, Charles V., although a far greater fanatic, had to permit Luther to go in peace from the diet at Worms. Ideas are the product of social co-operation, of social life. What is true in regard to society in general, is especially true in regard to the various social classes that compose society at any given epoch of history. Because every class has its peculiar interests, it also has its peculiar ideas and views. These conflicting ideas and interests have led to the class struggles that filled the annals of history and have attained their culmination in the class extremes and class struggles of the present day. The feelings, thoughts and actions of a person are, therefore, determined not only by the age in which he lives, but also by the class to which he belongs. Without modern society no modern ideas could exist. This is clear to everyone. In the new society—let it be remembered—the means that each individual will employ for his education and development will be the property of society. Society cannot feel obliged to reward particularly what it alone has made possible, its own product.

So much in regard to the qualification of physical and mental labor. From this the further conclusion may be drawn, that no distinction will be made between higher and lower grades of work; as, for instance, at present mechanics consider themselves superior to day-laborers who perform work on the roads, etc. Society will have only such work performed as is socially useful, and so every kind of work will be of equal social value. Should it not be possible to perform some kinds of dirty and disagreeable work by means of mechanical or chemical devices—which will undoubtedly be the case, to judge by the present rate of progress—and should there be no volunteers, it will be the duty of each worker to perform his share of such work when his turn comes. No false pride and no irrational disdain of useful labor will be recognized. These exist only in our state of drones, where idleness is considered enviable, and where those workers are the most despised whose tasks are the hardest and most unpleasant ones, and often the most needful to society. To-day the most disagreeable tasks are the ones most poorly paid. The reason for this is that we have a great many workers who have been maintained at a low level of civilization, whom the constant revolution in the process of production has cast out into the street, as a reserve force, and who, in order to live, must perform the lowest kinds of work, at wages that even make the introduction of machinery for such work “unprofitable.” The crushing of stone, for instance, is notoriously one of the most disagreeable and most poorly paid employments. It would be a simple matter to have this crushing of stones done by machinery, as is generally being done in the United States. But in Germany there is such an abundance of cheap labor, that the introduction of the stone-crusher would not “pay.”[234] Street-cleaning, the cleaning of sewers, collecting ashes and garbage, work in shafts and caissons, etc., might, even at the present time, with the aid of proper machinery, be performed in such a manner that most of the unpleasantness connected with them for the laborers, would disappear. But, as a matter of fact, a workingman who cleans sewers, to guard human beings against the dangers of germs of disease, is a very useful member of society, while a professor who teaches falsified history in the interest of the ruling classes, or a theologian who seeks to mystify the minds by the teaching of supernatural doctrines, are very harmful individuals.

A great many of our present-day scientists and scholars represent a guild that is employed and paid to defend and vindicate the dominance of the ruling classes, by means of the authority of science, to let this dominance appear just and necessary, and to maintain existing prejudices. In truth, this guild, to a great extent, poisons the minds, and performs work hostile to the advancement of civilization, in the interest of the bourgeoisie and its clients.[235] A social condition that will henceforth make the existence of such elements of society impossible, will perform a liberating deed.

On the other hand, true science is often connected with very disagreeable and revolting work. For instance, when a physician dissects a corpse in a state of decomposition, or operates upon a purulent part of the body, or when a chemist examines fæces. These tasks are often more revolting than the most disagreeable work performed by unskilled laborers. Yet no one will admit that this is so. The difference is that the performance of the one work requires profound study, while the other work can be performed by anyone without previous preparation. This accounts for the great difference in their estimation. But in future society, where, by means of equal opportunities of education for all, the distinctions of educated and uneducated will disappear, the distinction between skilled and unskilled labor will disappear also. This is all the more so because the possibilities of technical development are unlimited, and much that is manual work to-day will be performed by machines and mechanical processes. We need but consider the present development of our mechanical arts; for instance, engraving, wood-cutting, etc. As the most disagreeable tests often are the most useful ones, so our conceptions, in regard to pleasant and unpleasant work, like many other conceptions in the bourgeois world, are superficial and founded entirely on outward appearances.