Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1886-10-03
THE ESSENTIAL THING.
Ertdrt from Grmtl,uFs "Co-operdtire
Commonwealth.


The following reflections from an inter
esting work from which we have quoted
before: The l'uhue Of Life, written, it is
understood, by an eminent scientist of
New York, are here very pertinent;
1T is no sentimentalism but the sim
pie expression of fact that the individual
occupations of the members of Society
cannot be adequately regulated, as long
as they are regarded merely as the means
for each Of these persons to get his or her
living. by IA crowd of official acts, from
the Inspection of markets to taking the
census, Society, even as it is, expresses
its recognition of the fact, that this vast
mass Of activities, constituting the bust
ness Of the community, represents the
sum Of its own vegetative functions, by
which all its life, from the lowest to the
highest plane Of it, is sustained. In the
discharge of these functions the money
or living, earned by each individual, is
really the least important consideration.
Thus it is of much less importance, that
a butcher grow rich than that the thirty
or forty families he supplies with meat
receive good meat ut fair prices. What
ever value attaches to the individual life
of the butcher is multiplied forty times
by the sum Of those Of his customers; it
is, therefore, their welfare, not his profit
which must be the first consideration.
In other words; The essential thing is,
not that the butcher shall have a living.
still less be rich, but that meat shall be
hpu |
AIRY details, to be regulated not by the
convenience of the producer but by that
OF the consumer.
"This indispulabe line of reasoning
| overtums the theory, that work is per
formed for the sake of the producer,
(whosc advantage, indeed is quite subsid-
lary) and shows, that it is primarily for
| the benefit of Society or some group of
| persons in it. OF course, the worker, by
entering into another group where he is
| the consumer, finds his welfare correla-
| lively taken into account. The daily
| business is thus removed from the igno-
| miny and pettiness Of isolated individual
| ism and elevated into an honorable func-
ton, while he who performs it becomes
invested with the dignity of a public
functionary. That the worker receives
| remuneration is incidental-that the
work be thoroughly done is SO essential,
that it is lnseparabe from any typical con
ceptl0n Of achievement.
That is it. In the New Commonwealth
the butcher will be conscious and satisfied
that 1.-THE e$%ntjni thing is, not that he
shall have a living, but that meat shall
he supplied" The work of the citizen
VIII be the glad performance of social
office, not, as now, the mere tribute to
physical necessity. lie will be moral
worker, whose hest efforts, best ardor
and highest aims will be drawn out by
the joy which he takes in his work-in
all but the lowest work, such routine,
manual labor Us machinery should re-
move altogether from human hands. He
will soon he habitlated to regard his
wages, not as 4Hid pro quo, but as a
moral claim, as the provision made by
Society to enable him to carry on his
labor. The question: "why should do
honest work? 7" will then seem lust as IT.
rational us it is now to ask "why should
| eat?
Most of the offences to which we have
called attention will disappear, simply
because the opportunities for committing
them will be gone.
And when in the Coming Common
wealth few hours of daily, agreeable
effort will secure to every body all neces-
sarles, deCencies and comforts of life.
why then should any rational being want
to steal or cheat or rob! And why
should anybody want to make a living
by crime, when it will be far easier to
make it by honest work? And why
should anybody care to procure wealth
dishonesty, when wealth no longer will
mean POrer over men? When wealth
will not be able to coax the meanest of
men to he your footman and wear your
livery; When wealth simply will mean
more to eat, more to drink and more
Injuries?