The Labor enquirer., 1884-08-16
SLAVERY
Mahon Reviews q Portion Of Le
tourneau's Sociology y''--H
Upholds Socialism.

i
Masters, and this Is the only
Difference.
EDINBURGH, BRrrAIN. 40 Arthur ST., |
July Is 1884
From Letourneau's Sociology = Though
| it has been both the cause and effect OF
the development Of civilization, indus
trial labor has had upon human society
many unhappy results among others we
may mention the system of caste and
enslaved classes. Industry must certainly
be ranked among the principal reasons
for slavery, which indeed, in quite prim-
tive societies is progress, for it re-
placed slaughter Manual labor, how
ever little sustained, supposes q station
ary life and persistent effort of will /;
and this is absolutely opposed to the
savage man, or even to him who is bar
barous. Except the fabrication of arms,
all industrial labor was at first imposed
upon the woman or upon theslaYe. Man
kept for himself what he thought was
the more noble task that of killing
animals or his human competitors. His
work In life was hunting and warfare.
sWe know we'll enough that this dis
dain for manual labor has lasted through
all the historic phases of humanity,
down to our own times. But even after
the abolition Of slavery and of bondage,
the laborers. we're often divide into
castles and into corporations of more or
less degraded kind. We must, however.
make an exception in favor of certain
people in Africa, among whom the black
smith is held in very high honor. The
Kaffirs call him the iron doctor and
among the barbarians the blacksmiths
form an aristocratic class. We find
nothing of the sort in modern Europe,
where the governing classes hold in poor
estimation the artisan and the peasant,
though they do not themselves always
reach to that degree of individual devel-
opment which, even though it existed,
would hardly excuse their disdain.
"In primitive humanity industrial
labor weighed very heavily upon the
weak and the forsaken, and in our SO.
called civilized societies this same state
Of things has not disappeared so fully as
many Of us imagine. 1t is true that we
have no longer slaves or serfs among us
but we have men who work for wages,
who are constrained to perpetual toll,
often excessive and dangerous, and whose
only advantage over the ancient slave is
that they can change their masters.
"From the perfectioning and develop
ment of large industries in our modern
societies there has also resulted for the
working classes baneful consequence.
The industrial consumption has grown to
be enormous, and to suffice for its own
wants it has been obliged to inaugurate
upon vast scale labor in common, and
the most minute, divisions of this labor.
In this respect as in others the old Chi
nese civilization was in advance Of us.
Before 1t is completed Chinese flute
passes, as does pin with US, through a
very large number of hands; the labor,
therefore, of each workman becomes
purely mechanical, and Supplying in its
simplicity.
even in savage or in barbarous socie-
ties man is in some WAYS an artist. He
manufactures completely the objects of
his own industry, he can perfect them
according to his own taste, he can inter-
est himself in his work, and he exercises
his own intelligence. There is nothing
of this sort IN our large manufactures,
where the human creature is reduced TO
q mere automaton, executes every day
q small number of movements which are
ever and always the same. Hence are
born our large mass of pariahs, who ema-
ciate themselves with enervating labor.
We might also mention homicidal indus
tries, decimating the hard-working vic
I Tins in our large societies, to their inf
mite detriment.
ssWe hold it to be all important to rem
edy these flaws in our civilization. We
ought to transform the wages system into
free association, and above all things
lessen the hours Of daily work. Certain
| industries also, which are n ecessary but
unwholesome, ought to be considered as
social drudgery, existing because Of
their public utility, and therefore di-
yided out among those interested. In
this case and in this case only, the ex'
treme division Of labor would be sally
tary. Fourier industrial armies would
gradually replace the armies Of men now
turned into soldiers.
| 1.-THE future will place civilized socie
ties in an inexorable dilemma Justice
or Death" !.
| Itisa fallacY, popular among thost