That is how all working folk regard the universities, libraries, conservatories, picture-and sculpture-galleries, and the theatres, which are built at their expense. A labouring man so definitely regards this activity as an evil that he does not send his children to school, and to compel the masses to accept this activity it has everywhere been necessary to pass laws to compel school attendance. A labouring man always regards this activity with hostility, and will only cease so to regard it when he himself ceases to be a labourer and, by gain and afterwards by what is called education, passes from the ranks. of labour into the ranks of those who live on the backs of others. Yet despite the fact that the activity of the scientists and artists is not recognized and cannot be recognized by any of the workers, the latter are nevertheless compelled to make sacrifices for the benefit of that activity.
A man of the executive sends another directly to the guillotine or to jail; a trader exploiting the labour of another takes all he possesses from him, leaving him to choose between starvation or pernicious work; but a scientist or artist does not seem to compel others, he only offers his wares to those who wish to take them; but to produce his wares, which the working man does not want, he takes from them by force, through government agents, a large part of their labour for the erection and maintenance of academies, universities, high schools, primary schools, museums, libraries, conservatories, and for the support of the scientists and artists.
If we ask the scientists and artists about the aim they pursue in their activities, we get most remarkable replies. A man belonging to the government can reply that his aim is the common good, and in such a reply there is a measure of truth confirmed by public opinion. In the reply of an industrialist that his aim is the common good there would be less probability, but even that might be affirmed.
But the reply made by the scientists and artists is startlingly unproven and audacious.
The scientists and artists, without offering any proofs of it, say just what the priests of old said, that their activity is most important and necessary for all men and that without this activity all humanity would perish. They affirm this although no one but they understands or recognizes their activity and despite the fact that true science and true art, by their own definition, ought not to aim at utility. And scientists and artists devote themselves to their favourite occupation regardless of what benefit people may derive from it, and are always convinced that they are doing most important and necessary work for humanity. So that while a sincere man engaged in the government, acknowledging the chief motive of his activity to be a personal impulse, tries as far as possible to be useful to the working people, and an industrialist, admitting the selfishness of his activity, tries to give it a character of public utility, scientists and artists do not even consider it necessary to appear to try to be useful, and even reject the aim of utility, so confident are they not merely of the utility but even of the sanctity of their avocations.
And so it turns out that a third division people, having exempted themselves from labour and imposed it on others, are busying themselves with things quite incomprehensible to the workers, which the latter regard as rubbish and often as harmful rubbish; and they busy themselves with these things without any thought of being useful to the people, merely for their own pleasure, being for some reason fully convinced that their activity will always be such as is essential for the life of the working folk.
Men have exempted themselves from labour for life and have thrown that work onto others who perish in their toil. They exploit such labour, and assert that their own occupations, incomprehensible to the people and not directed towards the service of others, redeem all the harm they inflict by exempting themselves from labour for the maintenance of life and by consuming the labour of others.
The men engaged in the government, to compensate for the ‘undoubted and evident evil they inflict by exploiting other people’s work and exempting themselves from the struggle with nature, add another evident and undoubted evil-that of inflicting all sorts of violence.
The industrialists, to redeem the undoubted and evident evil they cause by using up the fruits of their toil, strive to obtain for themselves and consequently to take from others as much wealth as possible, that is, as much of people’s labour as possible.
Scientists and artists, in return for the unquestionable and obvious harm they do to the labouring people, occupy themselves with things that are incomprehensible to the labourers and which, on their own assertion, to be real must not aim at utility-but to which they feel drawn. And so all these people are quite convinced that their right to consume other people’s labour is impregnable.
It would seem obvious that all these people who have exempted themselves from labour to maintain life, have no ground for this. But amazing to say, they firmly behave in their own integrity and live as they do with a calm conscience.
There must be some ground-there must be some false doctrine-underlying such a terrible delusion!
CHAPTER XXVIII
AND indeed, underlying the position of people who live on work done by others there lies not only a belief but a whole doctrine, and not one doctrine but three, which during ages have grown up one on the other and solidified into one monstrous deception-or humbug, as the English expression has it-which hides their injustice.
The most ancient doctrine in our world justifying people’s neglect of the fundamental duty of working for their living was the Church-Christian doctrine, according to which men are differentiated one from another by God’s will, as the sun differs from the moon and stars, and the stars from one another: some men being appointed by God to rule over all the rest, others over many, others again over a few, and the rest being appointed to obey.
That doctrine, though now shaken to its foundations, still continues by inertia to act on people, so that many without accepting the teaching and often without being acquainted with it are still guided by it.
The second justificatory doctrine in our world is one I do not know how to describe otherwise than as the State-philosophic. According to that doctrine, fully expressed by Hegel, all that exists is reasonable, and the order of life people have set up and are maintaining is not established and maintained by men but is the only possible form for the manifestation of the spirit, or in general for the life of humanity.
This doctrine, too, is no longer held by those who guide public opinion in our day, but only maintains itself by force of inertia.
The third and now dominant doctrine-on which is based the justification now adopted alike by scientific and artistic people-is not a scientific doctrine in the simple meaning of that word as indicating knowledge in general, but in the sense of one kind of knowledge special both in form and in matter.
This new doctrine, called scientific, is what in our day chiefly supports the justification that hides from idle people their neglect of their duty.
This doctrine made its appearance in Europe contemporaneously with a large class of rich and idle people who served neither Church nor State and were in want of a justification corresponding to their position.
Not very long ago, up to the time of the French revolution, all in Europe who were not workers, in order to have a right to appropriate other people’s work had to have some very definite occupation in the service of the Church, the Government, or the Army. The men who served the Government ruled the people, those who served the Church taught people divine truths, while those who served in the Army defended the people.
Only three classes-the clergy, the rulers, and the military-considered themselves to have a right to appropriate the labour of the workers, and they could always adduce the services they rendered to the people: other rich men who had not that justification were despised and, conscious of their fault, felt ashamed of their wealth and idleness.
But a time came when this class of rich people not belonging to the clergy, the government, or the army, multiplied and became powerful thanks to the defects of those three classes, and these new people needed a justification. And the justification was produced.
Not a century passed before all these people, not serving State or Church and taking no part in their affairs, had not only obtained the same right to appropriate other people’s labour as the
