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and man, such as we have known in the Army, and the indignity | and man, such as we have known in the Army, and the indignity | ||
of labor shall have been done away with. | of labor shall have been done away with. | ||
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Latest revision as of 09:23, 18 September 2008
THE INDIGNITY OF LABOR
I ONCE heard Mr. Ramsay MacDonald hold forth on the, glories
of the ideal socialistic state. In a spirit of exalted prophecy
he told how in that state there would be no tyranny, no strife,
no crime, no private property. Men would no longer work for sordid
gain, but for the sheer joy of labor. "Do you believe that?"
shouted a man in the audience. "Of course he does!"
cried a little old man just in front of me. "Haven't I done
it all my life?" But the majority of the audience were with
the doubter. To them the idea of working for sheer joy was incomprehensible.
They worked because they had to; because they would starve if
they did not. If you examine the speeches and writings of men
more truly representative of labor than Mr. MacDonald you will
find that this is their idea too. They have little to say of the
dignity of labor, and much about its indignity. Their ideal is
not the apotheosis of work, but its reduction and more even distribution.
All men must share the burden, that all may taste the joy of relaxation.
A minimum of work and a maximum of leisure, that is the ideal
of the laborer.
This is a point of view which one can very easily understand;
yet I venture to think that there is nothing inherently bad in
labor---and by labor I mean manual labor. To a man who has suffered
from an excess of leisure, and who knows the terrors of boredom,
manual labor, performed under wholesome conditions, is a delight.
I once went for six months to the Australian bush. To rise early,
to spend the day in the open air wielding an axe, or to spend
it at the bottom of a forty-foot well with a bar and shovel, to
come back in the evening hungry and thirsty and tired, was one
of the best experiences that have ever come my way. I not only
felt fit in body and wholesome in mind, I had a feeling of self-respect
such as has never come from the manipulation of a typewriter.
I felt that I had justified my manhood, and experienced the dignity
of labor. Personally I feel convinced that labor is good, and
that a working day of less than eight hours would be bad for the
nation, and would only increase discontent.
If I am right we must seek the root of the indignity of labor,
not in labor itself, but in the conditions under which it is performed.
These conditions are, one must admit, often very bad. However
much improvement there may have been in the last few years, hours
are still often too long, the atmosphere tainted, and the relations
between employers and employed, and between the workers themselves,
permeated with mutual suspicion and dislike. It is this last aspect
of the problem that I want to discuss in the present article,
because it is one which at first sight seems capable of improvement
as a result of the war. At the present moment I suppose that nearly
all employers of labor who are of military age and bodily fitness
are holding commissions in the Army. Similarly nearly all their
employees who are eligible are in the ranks of the Army. Yet in
their new rôles as officer and private none of the old suspicion
and dislike appears to survive. In the Army the relations between
officers and men are, as a rule, excellent. Is it too much to
hope that when the war is over, and both go back to their former
positions, these good relations may in many cases survive?
I have no right to lay down the law about the relations of
employers or employed. I belong to neither category. I have no
experience of the inner workings of an industrial concern. I have
no idea of apportioning praise and blame. I only judge from what
my friends---and I have friends among both classes---tell me.
Often and often I have heard my employer friends denounce the
workingman. They say that he has no sense of honor, no conception
of the meaning of a contract, no gratitude, no loyalty. If an
employer arranges to give his men, in addition to their wages,
a share in the profits of the business, they will pocket their
bonus without a "thank you" in the fat years, and in
the lean years they will desert him without a thought. No matter
how generously an employer treats his workmen., if there is a
strike they will not be left out of it. It does not pay to treat
men well. If there is any chance of shirking, defrauding, or doing
shoddy work without being brought to book, the workman will take
it. So say the employers. I know nothing but what I am told. On
the other hand, workmen always seem to suspect their employer
of trying to get more out of them than he is paying for. If he
can get work done for less than the standard wage, he will. If
he can make one man do two men's work for one man's money, he
will. If in a bumper year he makes big profits, the workers see
nothing of them except what they earn by overtime. If a lean year
follows, hands are dismissed ruthlessly without any regard to
the length or fidelity of their service, or their chance of obtaining
work elsewhere; and the whole business is reorganized with a view
to extracting yet more work out of those whose services are retained.
So say my workmen friends. Moreover, so far as I can judge, the
relations between the workers themselves seem to be tainted with
the same poison. They eye each other with suspicion, accuse each
other on the slightest provocation with trying to curry favor
with the foreman or the "boss" at the expense of their
mates, and of prejudicing the interests of the latter by accepting
less than a fair wage, or by doing more than a fair day's work.
It is only when the workmen are banded together in a defensive
alliance against their masters, and the wages to be accepted and
the amount of work to be done by each man strictly laid down,
that there is even the appearance of cordiality between man and
man; and even then the league is always on the lookout for treachery.
I may be quite wrong, but such are my impressions of the spirit
obtaining in industrial life. And if these impressions are correct,
and if this atmosphere of mutual suspicion and mistrust does exist,
it seems quite adequate to account for the workman's hatred of
labor, and his denial of its inherent dignity.
In speaking of the Army I feel far more confident, for I have
known it both as a private and N.C.O. and as an officer.
I have no hesitation in saying that in the vast majority of
cases the relations between officers and men are quite extraordinarily
good. In the average company or platoon the officer is proud of
his men, and the men reciprocate the feeling. The men do their
work cheerfully, and are content. Of course they grumble. Who
doesn't? But there is no bitterness or mistrust. The men trust
their officers and the officers trust their men, to an extent
which I fancy has no parallel in civil life.
It is not easy to say why this should be so. The work of the
soldier is not interesting. For the most part his training consists
of long monotonous hours of drill and physical training, varied
by spells of menial drudgery and hard, unskilled navvying. His
pay, though not so little as it sounds, is considerably less than
he would be likely to earn in civil life. The accommodation and
food are of the roughest.
Although the work is healthy and there is no anxiety in the
life, these facts do not in themselves account for the good spirit
that prevails, for in cases where officers fail to gain the confidence
of their men the men hate the life with a bitter loathing, and
will take big risks to escape from it. I feel pretty sure that
as a matter of fact the comparative contentment of most soldiers
is mainly due to the persistence of a traditional good feeling
between officers and men, just as with less confidence I believe
that the discontent that seems to prevail in industrial life is
due to the survival of a bad tradition.
When one comes to study the subject more deeply one is immediately
struck by the fact that it is not easy-going laxity on the part
of an officer that produces a spirit of contentment among the
men. Rather the reverse is the case. It is more often the strict
officer, who knows his work and sets a high standard, that is
the popular commander of a self-satisfied unit. Under a slack
officer the men never know quite what is expected of them. One
day on parade they will pass muster. On the next, for no greater
slovenliness, they will be dropped on. Unconsciously their aim
becomes, not to do their best, but to do the least that will save
them from punishment. In such a unit as this there is no self-respect,
no confidence. The men work unwillingly, despise and dislike their
officer, and quarrel among themselves. On the other hand, where
an officer is strict the men know exactly where they are. They
know what is expected of them, and they know the results of negligence.
They aim high, and the knowledge that they are doing so increases
their self-respect and contentment. They are pleased with their
officer and pleased with themselves. There is esprit de corps.
In such a unit you will find the nearest approach that I know
to Mr. Ramsay MacDonald's ideal of work well done for the sheer
joy and pride of it.
Of course when I speak of a strict officer I do not mean a
mere meticulous martinet. There are officers whose strictness
amounts to positive hostility towards their men, and what a man
sows that shall he reap. The sort of strictness that I mean is
that of the officer who believes in himself and his men, and who
for that reason will be content with nothing but the highest efficiency.
Such an officer is never hostile to his men. Even when he is most
severe it is only because he cannot bear that his men should do
themselves less than justice. The men know it. They recognize
that it is not his own credit that he is seeking, but their common
glory. It is his company, but it is also theirs, of whose honor
he is so jealous. Such officers are common in the British Army;
in fact I think it would be true to say that the average officer
sets a high standard both for his men and for himself, and that
he seldom fails to secure their loyal co-operation in attaining
to it.
These are the facts, or what appear to me to be the facts.
Now we come back to our question. Is there any chance that, when
the war is over and officers become employers, and privates employed,
these good relations between them will be reproduced in industrial
life? I know what Mr. MacDonald would say. He would point out
that in the Army there is no competition, only emulation; that
officers are salaried officials of the State, and privates the
employees of the State; that all work in the Army is done for
the common weal, and that the scale of remuneration is fixed;
that no man can be discharged (this is almost literally true now),
and that all punishment is due to the law of the State. Reproduce
these conditions in industrial life, and you have Socialism, and,
according to Mr. MacDonald, the Utopian era dawns. Regretfully
I dissent. I doubt whether it would be possible to run the socialistic
State on aristocratic lines, or to reproduce the "public
school tradition," which whatever its limitations does place
honor, discipline, and public spirit in the forefront of the virtues.
Without this tradition I very much question whether it would be
possible to eliminate corruption to anything like the same extent
as has been done in the Army. Moreover, I very much question whether
the average man would consent to give up his individuality permanently
to the extent that he has done in this national crisis. In the
dull times of peace his sense of the dramatic would fail him.
I fear that we must face the fact that when the war is over
competition will continue to exert its ruthless pressure on employers,
and through them on the employed. Labor will still have to combine
against capital for self-defense. But it is legitimate to hope
that here and there a better spirit will prevail. Here and there
an employer will have learnt a better way of handling men, and
will be able to inspire them with respect and loyalty, and to
make them feel that they are more than servants of the firm---rather
partners, jointly responsible for its credit, and participating
in its successes. And he will succeed where others before him
have failed, because the workers, too, will have learnt a better
day of work. They will have learnt that loyalty does not demean
a man, and that not every olive branch need be mistrusted. And
finally, in the firms where these good relations between master
and men are realized, there will also be comradeship between man
and man, such as we have known in the Army, and the indignity
of labor shall have been done away with.