<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_LXXIII" id="CHAPTER_LXXIII"></SPAN>CHAPTER LXXIII<br/><br/> INTELLECTUAL PRODUCTION</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>(Discusses scientific, artistic and religious activities, as a
superstructure built upon the foundation of the standard wage.)</p>
</div>
<p>Karl Kautsky, intellectual leader of the German Social-democracy, gives
in his book, "The Social Revolution," a useful formula as to the
organization of the future society. This formula is: "Communism in
material production, Anarchism in intellectual production." It will
repay us to study this statement, and see exactly what it means.</p>
<p>Material production depends directly upon things; and as there is only a
limited quantity of things in the world, if any one person has more than
his share, he deprives some other person to that extent. So there have
to be strict laws concerning the distribution of material products. But
with intellectual things exactly the opposite is the case. There is no
limit in quantity, and any one person can have all he wants without
interfering with anybody else. Everybody in the world can perform a play
by Shakespeare, or play a sonata by Beethoven, and everybody can enjoy
it as much as he pleases without keeping other people from enjoying it
all they please. Also, material production can be standardized; we can
have great factories to turn out millions of boxes of matches, each
match like every other match, and the more alike they are the better.
But in intellectual affairs we want everyone to be different, or at
least we want everyone to be free to be different, and if some one can
become much better than the others, this is the most important kind of
production in the world, for he may make over our whole intellectual and
moral life.</p>
<p>For the production of material things our new society has great
factories owned in common, and run by majority vote of the workers, and
we place the products of that factory at the disposal of all members of
society upon equal terms. That is our "Communism in material
production." On the other hand, in our intellectual production we leave
everybody free to live his own life, and to associate himself with
others of like aims, and we place as few restrictions as possible upon
their activities.<SPAN name="vol_ii_page_211" id="vol_ii_page_211"></SPAN> This is the method of free association, or "Anarchism
in intellectual production."</p>
<p>Our problem would be simple if material and intellectual production
never had to mingle. But, as it happens, every kind of intellectual
production requires a certain amount of material, and every kind of
material production involves an intellectual element. Therefore, our two
methods have to be combined, and we have a complex problem which we have
to solve in a variety of different ways, and upon which we must
experiment with open minds and scientific temper.</p>
<p>First, let us take the intellectual elements involved in the production
of purely material things, such as matches and shoes and soap. Let us
take invention. Naturally, we do not want to go on making matches and
shoes and soap in the same old way forever. On the contrary, we want to
stimulate all the workers in these industries to use their wits and
improve the processes in every possible way. The whole of society has an
interest in this, and the soap workers have an especial interest. Our
soap industry has an invention department, with a group of experts
appointed by the executive committee of the national council of soap
workers. All soap workers are taxed, say five cents a day, for the
support of this activity. Likewise the state contributes a generous sum
out of its income toward the work of soap research. In addition to this,
the soap industry offers prizes and scholarships for suggestions as to
the improvement of every detail of the work, and at meetings of every
local of soap workers somebody makes new suggestions as to methods of
stimulating their intellectual life—not merely as regards soap, but as
regards citizenship, and art and literature, and human life in general.
Our soap workers, you must understand, are no longer wage-slaves,
brutalized by toil and poverty; they are free citizens of a free
society. Our soap workers' local in every city has its own theatre and
concert hall and lecture bureau, and publishes its own magazine.</p>
<p>Every industry has its immediate intellectual problems, its trade
journals in which these are discussed, and its research boards in which
they are worked out. The ambitions of the young workers in that industry
are concentrated upon getting into this intellectual part of their
trade. Examinations are held and tests are made to discover the most
competent men, and written suggestions are considered by boards of
control. It is, of course, of great importance to every worker that the
channels<SPAN name="vol_ii_page_212" id="vol_ii_page_212"></SPAN> of promotion should be kept open, and that the man who really
has inventive talent shall get, not merely distinction and promotion,
but financial reward, so that he may have time and materials to continue
his experiments.</p>
<p>This research department, you perceive, is a sort of superstructure,
built upon the foundation of our standard wage; and this same simile
applies to numerous other forms of intellectual production. For example,
our community paper mills turn out paper, and our community printers are
prepared to turn out millions of books. How shall we determine what is
to be the intellectual content of these material books? There are many
different methods. First, there is the method of individualism. A man
has something to say, and he writes a book; he works in the soap
factory, and saves a part of his standard wage, and when he has money
enough he orders the community printers to print his book, and the
community booksellers to handle it for him, and the community postoffice
to deliver it for him. Again, a group of men organize themselves into an
association, or club, or scientific society, and publish books. The
Authors' League takes up the work of publishing the writings of its
members, and the Poetry Society does the same.</p>
<p>This is the method of Anarchism, or free association. But there is no
reason why we should not have along side it the method of Socialism;
there is no reason why we should not have state publishing houses, just
as we have state universities and state libraries. The state should
certainly publish standard works of all sorts, bibles and dictionaries
and directories, and cheap editions of the classics. In this new world
our school boards are not chosen by business men for purposes of graft,
they are chosen by the people to educate our children; so it seems to us
perfectly natural that the National Educational Association should
conduct a publication department, and order the printing of the school
books which the children use.</p>
<p>In the same way, anyone is free to write a play, or to put on a play,
and invite people to come and see it. But, like the individual farmers
and the individual mothers of families, the play-producer in our society
is in competition with great community enterprises, which set a high
standard and make competition difficult. The same thing applies to the
opera, and to concerts, and to all the arts and sciences. You can start
a private hospital if you wish, but you will be in competition with
public institutions, and you can only succeed if you are a man<SPAN name="vol_ii_page_213" id="vol_ii_page_213"></SPAN> of
genius—that is, if you have something to teach, too new and startling
for the public boards of control to recognize. You try your new method,
and it works, and that becomes a criticism of the public boards of
control, and before long the people by their votes turn out the old
board of control and put you in.</p>
<p>That is politics, you say; but we in our new world do not use the word
politics as one of contempt. We really believe that public sentiment is
in the long run the best authority, and the appeal to public sentiment
is at once a social privilege and a social service. What we strive to do
is to clear the channels of appeal, and avoid favoritism and stagnation.
To that end we maintain, in every art and every science and every
department of human thought, endless numbers of centers of free,
independent, co-operative activity, so that every man who has an
inspiration, or a new idea, can find some group to support him or can
form a new group of his own.</p>
<p>This is our "Anarchism in intellectual production," and it is the method
under which in capitalist society men organize all their clubs and
societies and churches. Devout members of the Roman Catholic Church will
be startled to be told that theirs is an Anarchist organization; but
nevertheless, such is the case. The Catholic Church owns a great deal of
property, and speculates in real estate, and to that extent it is a
capitalist institution. It holds a great many people by fear, and to
that extent it is a feudal institution. But in so far as members of the
church believe in it and love it and contribute of their free will to
its support, they are organizing by the method which all Anarchists
recommend and desire to apply to the whole of society. Anarchist clubs
and Christian churches are both free associations for the advocacy of
certain ideas, the only difference being in the ideas they advocate.</p>
<p>In our new world such organizations have been multiplied many fold, and
form a vast superstructure of intellectual activity, built upon the
foundation of the standard wage. In this new world all the people are
free. They are free, not merely from oppression, but from the fear of
oppression; they have leisure and plenty, and they take part naturally
and simply in the intellectual life. The old, of course, have not got
over the dullness which a lifetime of drudgery impressed upon them, but
the young are growing up in a world without classes, and in which it
seems natural that everyone should be educated and everyone should have
ideas. They earn their standard wage,<SPAN name="vol_ii_page_214" id="vol_ii_page_214"></SPAN> and devote their spare time to
some form of intellectual or artistic endeavor, and spend their spare
money in paying writers and artists and musicians and actors to
stimulate and entertain them.</p>
<p>These latter are the ways of distinction in our new society; these are
the paths to power. The only rich men in our world are the men who
produce intellectual goods; the great artists, orators, musicians,
actors and writers, who are free to serve or not to serve, as they see
fit, and can therefore hold up the public for any price they care to
charge. Just now there is eager discussion going on in our world as to
whether it is proper for an opera singer, or a moving picture star, or a
novelist, to make a million dollars. Our newspapers are full of
discussions of the question whether anyone can make a million dollars
honestly, and whether men of genius should exploit their public. Some
point out that our most eminent opera singer spends his millions in
endowing a conservatory of art; but others maintain that it would be
better if he lowered his prices of admission, and let the public use its
money in its own way. The extremists are busy founding what they call
the Ten-cent Society, whose members agree to boycott all singers and
actors who charge more than ten cents admission, and all moving picture
stars who receive more than a hundred thousand dollars a year for their
service. These "Ten-centers" do not object to paying the money, but they
object to the commercializing of art, and declare especially that the
moral effect of riches is such that no rich person should ever, under
any circumstances, be allowed to influence the youth of the nation. In
this some of the greatest writers join them, and renounce their
copyrights, and agree to accept a laureateship from some union of
workers, who pay them a generous stipend for the joy and honor of being
associated with their names. The greatest poet of our time began life as
a newsboy, and so the National Newsvenders' Society has adopted him, and
taken his name, and pays him ten thousand dollars a year for the
privilege of publishing his works.<SPAN name="vol_ii_page_215" id="vol_ii_page_215"></SPAN></p>
<h2><SPAN name="CHAPTER_LXXIV" id="CHAPTER_LXXIV"></SPAN>CHAPTER LXXIV<br/><br/> MANKIND REMADE</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>(Discusses human nature and its weaknesses, and what happens to
these in the new world.)</p>
</div>
<p>We have briefly sketched the economic arrangements of the co-operative
commonwealth. Let us now consider what are the effects of these
arrangements upon the principal social diseases of capitalism.</p>
<p>The first and most dreadful of capitalism's diseases is war, and the
economic changes here outlined have placed war, along with piracy and
slavery, among the half-forgotten nightmares of history. We have broken
the "iron ring," and are no longer dependent upon foreign concessions
and foreign markets for the preservation of our social system and the
aggrandizement of a ruling class. We can stay quietly at home and do our
own work, and as we produce nearly everything we need, we no longer have
to threaten our neighbors. Our neighbors know this, and therefore they
do not arm against us, and we have no pretext to arm against them. We
take toward all other civilized nations the attitude which we have taken
toward Canada for the past hundred years.</p>
<p>We have a small and highly trained army, a few regiments of which are
located at strategic points over the country. This army we regard and
use as we do our fire department. When there is widespread damage by
fire or flood or storm or earthquake, we rush the army to the spot to
attend to the work of rescue and rebuilding. Also, we have a small navy
in international service; for, of course, we are no longer an
independent and self-centered nation; we have come to realize that we
are part of the world community, and have taken our place as one state
in the International Socialist Federation. We send our delegates to the
world parliament, and we place our resources at the disposal of the
world government. However, it now takes but a small army and navy to
preserve order in the world. We govern the backward nations, but the
economic arrangements of the world are such that we are no longer driven
to exploit and oppress them. We send them teachers instead of<SPAN name="vol_ii_page_216" id="vol_ii_page_216"></SPAN> soldiers,
and as there are really very few people in the world who fight for the
love of fighting, we have little difficulty in preserving peace. We pay
the backward peoples a fair price for their products which we need. Our
world government takes no money out of these countries, but spends it
for the benefit of those who live in the countries, to teach them and
train their young generations for self-government.</p>
<p>Next, what are the effects of our new arrangements upon political
corruption and graft? The social revolution has broken the prestige of
wealth. Money will buy things, but it no longer buys power, the right to
rule other men; it no longer buys men's admiration. Everybody now has
money, and nobody is any longer afraid of starvation. It is no longer
the fashion to save money—any more than it is the fashion to carry
revolvers in drawing-rooms or to wear chain mail in place of
underclothing. So our political life is cleansed of the money influence.
People now get power by persuading their fellows, not by buying them or
threatening them. The world is no longer full of men ravenous for jobs,
and ready to sell their soul for a "position." So it is no longer
possible to build up a "machine" based on desire for office.</p>
<p>The changes have resulted in an enormous intensification of our
political activities. We have endless meetings and debates; we have so
many propaganda societies that we cannot keep track of them. And some of
these societies, like the Catholic Church, have a large membership, and
large sums of money at their disposal. But a few experiments at carrying
elections by a "campaign-chest" have convinced everybody that to have
the facts on your side is the only permanent way to political power. Our
new society is jealous of attempts to establish any sort of ruling
class, and the surest way to discredit yourself is to advocate any form
of barrier against freedom of discussion, or the right of the people's
will to prevail.</p>
<p>Next, what is the status of crime? We have too recently escaped from
capitalism to have been able to civilize entirely our slum population,
and we still have occasional crimes of violence, especially crimes of
passion. But we have almost entirely eliminated those classes of crime
which had to do with property, and we have discovered that this was
ninety-five per cent of all crime. We have eliminated them by the simple
device of making them no longer profitable. Anybody can go into our
community factories, and under clean and attractive working conditions,<SPAN name="vol_ii_page_217" id="vol_ii_page_217"></SPAN>
and without any loss of prestige or social position, can earn the means
of satisfying his reasonable wants by three hours work a day. Almost
everybody finds this easier than stealing or cheating.</p>
<p>But more important yet, as a factor in abolishing crime, is the
abolition of class domination and the prestige of wealth. We no longer
have in our community a ruling class which lives without working, and
which offers to the weak-minded and viciously inclined the perpetual
example of luxury. We no longer set much store on jewels and fine
raiment; we do not make costly things, except for public purposes, where
all may enjoy them; and nobody stores great quantities of money, because
everyone has a guarantee of security from the state. So we are gradually
putting our policemen and jailers and judges and lawyers to constructive
work.</p>
<p>Next, what about disease? The diseases of poverty are entirely done away
with. We are now able to apply the knowledge of science to the whole
community, and so we no longer have to do with tuberculosis and typhoid,
or with rickets and an�mia in children, or with heavy infant mortality.
We have sterilized our unfit, the degenerates and the defectives, and so
do not have to reckon with millions of children from these wretched
stocks. We now give to the question of public health that prominence
which in the old days we used to give to war and the suppression of
crime and social protest. Our public health officers now replace our
generals and admirals, and we really obey their orders.</p>
<p>Next, as to prostitution. Just as in the case of crime, we are still too
close to capitalism not to have among us the victims of social
depravity, both men and women. We still have a great deal of vice which
springs from untrained animal impulse, and we have some cultivated and
highly sophisticated pornography. But we have entirely done away with
commercial vice, and we have done it by cutting the root which nourished
it. Women in our communities are really free; and by that we do not mean
the empty political freedom which existed in the days of wage
slavery—we mean that women are permanently delivered from economic
inferiority, by the recognition on the part of the state of the money
value of their special kind of work, the bearing and training of
children. This kind of work not merely receives the standard wage, it
also receives the best surgical and nursing treatment free. Housework
and home-making are<SPAN name="vol_ii_page_218" id="vol_ii_page_218"></SPAN> legally recognized services; and the woman before
marriage and after her children have been nursed is free to go into the
community factories and earn for herself the standard wage, with no loss
of social position. Consequently, no woman sells her sex, and no man
buys it.</p>
<p>This does not mean, of course, that we have solved the sex problem in
our new society. There are two great social problems with which we have
to deal, the first of these being the sex problem, and the second the
race problem. Our scientists are occupied with eugenics, and we are
finding out how to guide our young people in marriage, so that our race
may be built up, and the ravages of capitalism remedied as quickly as
possible. Also we are trying to find out the laws of happiness and
health in love. We are founding societies for the purpose of protecting
love, and, as hinted in the Book of Love, we have a determined social
struggle between two groups of women—the mother-women and the
mistress-women—those who take love gravely, as a means of improving the
race, and those who take it as a decoration, a form of play. Our men are
embarrassed by having to choose between these groups, and occupy
themselves with trying to keep the struggle from turning into civil war.</p>
<p>Second, the race problem. Our economic changes have, of course, done
away with some of the bitterest phases of this strife. White workingmen
in the North no longer mob and murder negro workingmen for taking their
jobs, and in the South our land values tax prevents the landlord from
exploiting either white or negro labor. But our white race is still
irresistibly bent upon preserving its integrity of blood, and the more
far-seeing among the negroes have come to realize that there can never
be any real happiness for them in a society where they are denied the
higher social privileges. There is a movement for the development of a
genuine Negro Republic in Africa, and for mass emigration. Also there is
a proposition, soon to be settled at an election, for the dividing of
the United States into three districts upon racial lines. First, there
are to be, in the Far South, three or four states which are inhabited
and governed solely by negroes, and to which white men may come only as
temporary visitors; a large group of states in the North which are white
states, and to which negroes may come only as visitors; and finally, a
middle group of states, in which both whites and black are allowed to
live, as at present, but with<SPAN name="vol_ii_page_219" id="vol_ii_page_219"></SPAN> the proviso that no one may live there
who takes part in any form of racial strife or agitation. This program
gives to race-conscious negroes their own land, their own civilization,
their own chance of self-realization; it gives to race-conscious white
men the same opportunity; and it leaves to those who are not troubled by
the problem, a country where black and white may dwell in quiet good
fellowship.</p>
<p>Finally, what has been the effect of our economic changes upon the
purely personal vices which gave us so much trouble and unhappiness in
the old days? What, for example, has been the effect upon vanity? You
should see our new crop of children in our high schools! There are no
longer any social classes among them; the rich ones do not arrive in
private automobiles, to make the poor ones envious, and they do not
isolate themselves in little snobbish cliques. They arrive in community
automobiles, and all wear uniforms—one of the simple devices by which
we repress the impulse of the young toward display of personal egotism.
They are all full of health and happy play, and their heads are busily
occupied with interesting ideas. Our girls are trained to thinking,
instead of to personal adornment; they are developing their minds,
instead of catching a rich husband by sexual charms. So we have been
able, in a single generation of training, to make a real and appreciable
difference in the amount of vanity and self-consciousness to be found
among our young people.</p>
<p>And the same thing applies to a score of other undesirable qualities,
which, under the system of competitive commercialism, were
overstimulated in human beings. In those old days everyone was seeking
his own survival, and certain qualities which had survival value became
the principal characteristics of our race. Those qualities were greed
and persistence in acquisitiveness, cunning and subtlety, also bragging
and self-assertiveness. In that old world people destroyed their fellows
in order to make their own safety and power; they wasted goods in order
to be esteemed, to preserve what they called their "social position."
But now we have cut the roots of all these vile weeds. We have so
adjusted the business relationships of men that we do not have to have
hysterical religious revivals in order to keep the human factors alive
in their hearts. We have established it as a money fact, which everyone
quickly realizes, that it pays better to co-operate; there is more
profit and less bother in being of service to others. So we have
prepared a soil in<SPAN name="vol_ii_page_220" id="vol_ii_page_220"></SPAN> which virtues grow instead of vices, and we find
that people become decent and kindly and helpful without exhortation,
and with no more moral effort than the average man can comfortably make.
Of course, we have still personal vices to combat, and new virtues to
discover and to propagate; but this has to do with the future, whereas
we are here confining ourselves to those things which have been
demonstrated in our new society.<SPAN name="vol_ii_page_221" id="vol_ii_page_221"></SPAN></p>
<div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />