The State undertook to guide the lives of men. The State promised men justice, tranquility, security, order, the satisfaction of their general spiritual and material needs, and on this account the men who served the State emancipated themselves from participation in humanity’s struggle for life. And the servants of the State, as soon as ever it was possible for them to exploit the labour of others, did what the servants of the Church had done. Their aim became not the people but the State, and the servants of the State-from kings down to the lowest officials and employees-in Rome, France, England, Russia, and America, abandoned themselves to idleness and depravity.
And people ceased to believe in the State, and anarchy is already consciously presented as an ideal.
The State lost its fascination for people only because its servants considered that they had a right to exploit the people’s labour.
The same thing has been done by science and art with the help of the State authorities whom they have undertaken to support. They too stipulated for the right to idleness and to the use of other people’s labour, and have similarly been false to their vocation.
And they too ran into error only because the servants of science, having adopted the wrongly understood principle of division of labour, allowed themselves the right to appropriate other people’s labour and lost the meaning of their own vocation, taking for their aim not the benefit of the people but the mystic benefit of science and art; like their predecessors they yielded to idleness and depravity, not so much sensuous as intellectual.
It is said that science and art have given much to humanity. That is perfectly true.
The Church and the State gave much to humanity, not because they misused their power and their servants neglected the eternal obligation of man to labour for his livelihood-which applies to all men-but in spite of it.
So also science and art have given much to humanity, not because the scientists and artists on the plea of a division of labour live on the back of the working class but despite that fact. The Roman republic was strong not because its citizens were able to lead depraved lives, but because there were among them some worthy citizens. And it is the same with science and art.
Science and art have given much to humanity not because their servants sometimes formerly had, and now always have, opportunity to emancipate themselves from labour, but because there were men of genius who, not availing themselves of that opportunity, moved humanity forward.
The class of the learned and of artists who on the ground of a false division of labour demand the right to exploit the labour of others cannot contribute to the success of true science and true art, for falsehood cannot produce truth.
We are so accustomed to our pampered, fat, or enfeebled representatives of mental work, that it seems to us barbarous that a learned man or an artist should plough or cart manure. It seems to us as if all his wisdom would perish or be shaken to pieces on the cart, and the manure would soil the grand artistic images he carries in his breast; but we are so accustomed to it that it does not seem strange when a servant of science, that is a servant and teacher of truth, compelling others to do for him what he could do for himself, spends half his time in eating tasty food, in smoking, gossip, or liberal tittle-tattle, reading the papers and novels, and visiting the theatres. It does not surprise us to see our philosopher at a restaurant, a theatre, or a ball; nor does it seem strange to us to learn that those artists who delight and ennoble our souls spend their lives in drunkenness, card playing, or with wenches-if not doing something worse…
Science and art are beautiful things, but just because they are beautiful they should not be spoilt by joining depravity to them, that is, by freeing oneself from a man’s obligation to support his own and other people’s lives by labour.
Science and art have advanced humanity, yes! but not because the men of science and art, on the plea of a division of labour, by word and above all by deed have taught people to avail themselves of violence, and of the poverty and suffering of others, to free themselves from the first and most unquestionable human obligation of working with their own hands in the struggle with nature that is common to all humanity.
CHAPTER XXXIV
‘BUT it is only the division of labour, and the emancipation of the men of science and art from the necessity of producing their own food, that has made possible the extraordinary progress of science that we see in our time,’ is what people. say to this.
‘If everyone had to plough, those enormous results could not have been attained that have been attained in our time; there would not have been the striking progress which has so increased man’s power over nature, nor those astronomical discoveries which have so impressed man’s mind and made navigation safer, nor those steamers, railroads, marvellous bridges, tunnels, steam engines, telegraphs, photographs, telephones, sewing-machines, phonographs, electricity, telescopes, spectroscopes, microscopes, chloroform, antiseptics, and carbolic acid.’
I cannot enumerate all the things our age so prides itself on. That enumeration, and the raptures over ourselves and over our achievements, can be found in almost any newspaper or popular book. Those raptures over ourselves are so often repeated, we are so overjoyed at ourselves, that we are seriously convinced, with Jules Verne, that science and art never made such progress as in our time.
And we owe all this wonderful success to the division of labour, so how can we fail to acknowledge it?
Let us grant that the successes achieved in our age are really striking, wonderful, and extraordinary. Let us admit that we are such peculiarly fortunate people as to live in such an extraordinary time. But let us try to value these successes not by our self-satisfaction but by that same principle of division of labour in defence of which they are quoted: that is by the mental work of the men of science for the benefit of the people, which is to pay for the scientists’ and artists’ emancipation from labour. All these successes are very wonderful, but by some unfortunate accident admitted by scientists themselves-up to now these successes have not improved the condition of the labourer but rather have made it worse.
If a workman instead of walking can go by train, on the other hand the railroad has consumed his forest, carried away the grain from under his nose, and brought him to a condition not far removed from slavery to those who own the railroad.
If, thanks to the steam-engines and machines, the labourer can buy wretched cotton prints, those steam-engines and machines have deprived him on the other hand of earnings at home, and have reduced him to a condition of complete slavery to the manufacturer.
If there are telegraph stations which he is not forbidden to use but which his means do not allow him to use, on the other hand his produce, as soon as the price is rising, thanks to
the telegraph system gets bought up from under his nose by capitalists before the labourer hears of the demand there is for it.
If there are telephones and telescopes, verses, novels, theatres, ballets, symphonies, operas, picture galleries, and so forth, the workman’s life is not improved by all this, for by the same unfortunate accident it is beyond his reach. So that in general up to now-as men of science admit-all these extraordinary inventions and productions of art, if they have not injured have quite failed to improve the labourer’s life.
So that if the question of the reality of the successes achieved by science and art is measured not by our raptures over ourselves, but by the same standard by which the division of labour is defended-namely that of advantage to the labouring people, we shall see that we have as yet no firm basis for the self-satisfaction to which we so willingly yield.
A peasant goes by rail, his wife buys cotton prints, they have a lamp in their hut instead of a wooden torch, and the man lights his pipe with a match-that is convenient; but what right have I to say that the railroad and factories have benefited the people?
If the peasant travels on the railroad and buys a lamp, cotton prints, and matches, this is only because it is impossible to forbid him to do so, but we all know that the railroads and the factories were not built for the benefit of the labouring people, so why bring forward accidental conveniences, of which the peasants chance to be able to avail themselves, as proofs of the utility of those institutions to
