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10 - Agreeable Work - The Conquest of Bread · Philosophy and Faith

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  Speaker 1: Chapter ten, Agreeable Work, Part One. When socialists declare that
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  Speaker 1: a society emancipated from capital would make work agreeable and
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  Speaker 1: would suppress all repugnant and unhealthy drudgery, they get laughed at.
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  Speaker 1: And yet even today we see the striking progress made
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  Speaker 1: in this direction, and wherever this progress has been achieved,
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  Speaker 1: employers congratulate themselves on the economy of energy obtained thereby.
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  Speaker 1: It is evident that a factory could be made as
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  Speaker 1: healthy and pleasant as a scientific laboratory, and it is
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  Speaker 1: no less evident that would be advantageous to make it so.
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  Speaker 1: In a spacious and well ventilated factory, work is better.
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  Speaker 1: It is easy to introduce small ameliorations, of which each
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  Speaker 1: represents an economy of time or of manual labor. And
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  Speaker 1: if most of the workshops we know are foul and unhealthy,
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  Speaker 1: it is because the workers are of no account in
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  Speaker 1: the organization of factories, and because the most absurd waste
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  Speaker 1: of human energy is its distinctive feature. Nevertheless, now and
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  Speaker 1: again we find some factors so well managed that would
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  Speaker 1: be a real pleasure to work in them, if the
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  Speaker 1: work be well understood, were not to last more than
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  Speaker 1: four or five hours a day. And everyone had the
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  Speaker 1: possibility of varying it according to his tastes. Look at
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  Speaker 1: this factory, unfortunately consecrated to engines of war. It is
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  Speaker 1: perfect as far as regards sanitary and intelligent organization. It
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  Speaker 1: occupies fifty English acres of land, fifteen of which are
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  Speaker 1: roofed glass. The pavement of fireproof bricks is as clean
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  Speaker 1: as that of a miner's cottage, and the glass roof
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  Speaker 1: is carefully cleaned by a gang of workmen who do
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  Speaker 1: nothing else. In this factory are forged steeled inguts or
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  Speaker 1: blooms weighing as much as twenty tons. And when you
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  Speaker 1: stand thirty feet from the immense furnace, whose flames have
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  Speaker 1: a temperature of more than a thousand degrees, you do
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  Speaker 1: not guess its presence, save when its great jaws open
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  Speaker 1: to let out a steel monster, and the monster is
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  Speaker 1: handled by only three or four workmen who now here.
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  Speaker 1: Now there open at taps, causing immense cranes to move
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  Speaker 1: by pressure of water in the pipes. You enter expecting
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  Speaker 1: to hear the deafening noise of stampers, and you find
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  Speaker 1: that there are no stampers. The immense hundred ton guns
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  Speaker 1: and the crankshafts of Transatlantic steamers are forged by hydraulic pressure,
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  Speaker 1: and instead of forging steel, the worker has but to
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  Speaker 1: turn a tap to give its shape, which makes a
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  Speaker 1: far more homogeneous metal without crack or flaw of the blooms,
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  Speaker 1: whatever be their thickness. We expect an infernal grating, and
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  Speaker 1: we find machines which cut blocks of steel thirty feet
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  Speaker 1: long with no more noise than is needed to cut cheese.
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  Speaker 1: And when we expressed our admiration to the engineer who
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  Speaker 1: showed us round, he answered, it is a mere question
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  Speaker 1: of economy. This machine, the plane steel, has been in
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  Speaker 1: use for forty two years. It would not have lasted
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  Speaker 1: ten years if its component parts badly adjusted, lacking in
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  Speaker 1: cohesive strength, interfered and creaked at each movement of the plane.
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  Speaker 1: In the blast furnaces, it would be a waste to
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  Speaker 1: let the heat escape instead of utilizing it. Why roast
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  Speaker 1: the founders when heat loss by radiation represents tons of coal.
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  Speaker 1: The stampers that made the building shake five leagues off
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  Speaker 1: were also a waste. It is better the forge by
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  Speaker 1: pressure than by impact, and a cost less There is
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  Speaker 1: less loss in a factory light planning less the space
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  Speaker 1: allotted to each bench is but of a simple question
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  Speaker 1: of economy. Work is better done when you can see
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  Speaker 1: and you have elbow room. It is true, he said,
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  Speaker 1: we are very cramped before coming here. Land is so expensive,
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  Speaker 1: in the vicinity of large towns. Landlords are so grasping.
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  Speaker 1: It is even so in mind. We know what mines
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  Speaker 1: are like nowadays, from Zola's descriptions and from newspaper reports.
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  Speaker 1: But the mind of the future will be well ventilated,
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  Speaker 1: with a temperature as easily regulated as that of a library.
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  Speaker 1: There will be no horses doomed to die below the earth. Underground.
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  Speaker 1: Traction will be carried on by a means of an
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  Speaker 1: automatic cable put in motion at the pit's mouth. Ventilators
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  Speaker 1: will always be working, and there will never be explosions.
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  Speaker 1: This is no dream. Such a mine is already to
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  Speaker 1: be seen in England. We went down it here again.
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  Speaker 1: This organization is simply a question of economy. The mind
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  Speaker 1: of which we speak, in spite of its immense depth,
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  Speaker 1: four hundred and sixty six yards, has an output of
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  Speaker 1: a thousand tons of cola day, with only two hundred
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  Speaker 1: miners five tons a day per each worker, whereas the
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  Speaker 1: average of the two thousand pits in England is hardly
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  Speaker 1: three hundred tons a year per man. If necessary, we
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  Speaker 1: can multiply examples proving that Fuye's dream regarding material organization
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  Speaker 1: was not a utopia. This question has, however, been so
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  Speaker 1: frequently discussed in socialist newspapers that public opinion might have
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  Speaker 1: been educated. Factory forge and mine can be as healthy
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  Speaker 1: and magnificent as the finest laboratories in modern universities, and
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  Speaker 1: the better the organization, the more will man's labor produce.
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  Speaker 1: If it be so, can we doubt out that work
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  Speaker 1: will become a pleasure and a relaxation In a society
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  Speaker 1: of equals, in which hands will not be compelled to
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  Speaker 1: sell themselves to toil and to accept work under any conditions.
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  Speaker 1: Repugnant tasks will disappear, because it is evident that these
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  Speaker 1: unhealthy conditions are harmful to a society as a whole.
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  Speaker 1: Slaves can submit to them, but free men will create
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  Speaker 1: new conditions, and their work will be pleasant and infinitely
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  Speaker 1: more productive. The exceptions of today will be the rule
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  Speaker 1: of tomorrow. The same will come to pass as regards
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  Speaker 1: domestic work, which today's society lays on the shoulder of
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  Speaker 1: that drudge of humanity woman. Part two. A society regenerated
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  Speaker 1: by the revolution will make domestic slavery disappear. This last
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  Speaker 1: form of slavery perhaps the most tenacious, because it is
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  Speaker 1: also the most ancient. Only it will not come about
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  Speaker 1: in the way dropt by the Palistarians, nor in the
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  Speaker 1: manner often imagined by authoritarian communists. Balisteries are repugnant to
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  Speaker 1: millions of human beings. The most reserved man certainly feels
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  Speaker 1: the necessity of meeting his fellows for the purpose of
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  Speaker 1: common work, which becomes the more attractive the more he
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  Speaker 1: feels himself a part of an immense whole, but is
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  Speaker 1: not so for the hours of leisure reserved for arrest
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  Speaker 1: and intimacy. The falistery and the familistairy do not take
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  Speaker 1: this into account, or else they endeavor to supply its
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  Speaker 1: needs by artificial groupings. A falanstairy, which is in fact
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  Speaker 1: nothing but an immense hotel, can please some and even all,
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  Speaker 1: at a certain period of their life, But the great
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  Speaker 1: mass prefers family life, family life of the future. Be
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  Speaker 1: it understood. They prefer isolated apartments Normans and Anglo Saxons,
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  Speaker 1: even going as far as to prefer houses of from
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  Speaker 1: sixty eight rooms in which the family or an agglomeration
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  Speaker 1: of friends can live apart. Sometimes a falanstery is a necessity,
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  Speaker 1: but it would be hateful were it. The general rule,
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  Speaker 1: isolation alternated with time spent in society is the normal
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  Speaker 1: desire of human nature. This is why one of the
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  Speaker 1: greatest tortures in prison is an impossibility of isolation, much
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  Speaker 1: as solitary confinement becomes torture in its turn when not
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  Speaker 1: alternated with hours of social life. As to considerations of economy,
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  Speaker 1: which are sometimes laid stress on in favor of balansteries,
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  Speaker 1: they are those of a petty tradesman. The most important economy,
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  Speaker 1: the only reasonable one is to make life pleasant for all,
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  Speaker 1: because the man who is satisfied with his life produces
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  Speaker 1: infinitely more than the man who curses his surroundings. Other
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  Speaker 1: socialists reject the falinsteri. But when you ask them how
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  Speaker 1: domestic work can be organized, the answer each can do
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  Speaker 1: his own work. My wife manages the house. The wives
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  Speaker 1: of the bourgeois will do as much. And if it
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  Speaker 1: is a bourgeois playing at socialism who speaks, he will
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  Speaker 1: add with a gracious smile to his wife. Is it
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  Speaker 1: not true, darling, that you would do without a servant
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  Speaker 1: in a socialist society, you would work like the wife
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  Speaker 1: of our good comrade Paul, or the wife of John
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  Speaker 1: the carpenter, servant or wife. Man always reckons on a
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  Speaker 1: woman to do the housework. But woman, too, at last
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  Speaker 1: claims her share in the emancipation of humanity. She no
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  Speaker 1: longer wants to be the beast of burden of the house.
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  Speaker 1: She considers it sufficient to work to give many years
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  Speaker 1: of her life to the rearing of her children. She
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  Speaker 1: no longer wants to be the cook, the mender, the
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  Speaker 1: sweeper of the house. And owing to American woman taking
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  Speaker 1: the lead and obtaining their claims, there is a general
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  Speaker 1: complaint of the dearth of woman who will condescend to
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  Speaker 1: domestic work. In the United States, my lady prefers art, politics, literature,
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  Speaker 1: or the gaming tables as to the work. Girls. There
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  Speaker 1: are few those who consent to submit to apron slavery,
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  Speaker 1: and servants are only found with difficulty in the States. Consequently,
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  Speaker 1: the solution is a very simple one is pointed out
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  Speaker 1: by life itself. Machinery undertakes three quarters of the household
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  Speaker 1: cares you black your boots, and you know how ridiculous
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  Speaker 1: this work is. What can be more stupid than right
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  Speaker 1: being a boot twenty or thirty times with a brush.
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  Speaker 1: A tenth of the European population must be compelled to
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  Speaker 1: sell itself in exchange for a miserable shelter and insufficient food.
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  Speaker 1: And a woman must consider herself a slave in order
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  Speaker 1: that millions of her sex should go through this performance
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  Speaker 1: every morning. But hairdressers already have machines for brushing glossy
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  Speaker 1: or willy heads of hair. Why should we not apply
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  Speaker 1: then the same principle to the other extremity? So has
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  Speaker 1: not been done, And nowadays the machine for blocking boots
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  Speaker 1: is in the general use in big American and European hotels.
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  Speaker 1: Its use is spreading outside hotels. In large English schools
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  Speaker 1: where the pupils are boarding in the houses of the teachers,
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  Speaker 1: it has been found easier to have one single establishment
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  Speaker 1: which undertakes to brush a thousand pairs of boots every morning.
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  Speaker 1: As to washing up, where can we find a housewife
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  Speaker 1: who has not a horror of a long and dirty
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  Speaker 1: work that is usually done by hand, solely because the
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  Speaker 1: work of the domestic slave is of no account. In
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  Speaker 1: America they do better. They are already a number of
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  Speaker 1: cities in which hot water is conveyed to the house
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  Speaker 1: as cold water is in Europe. Under these conditions, the
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  Speaker 1: problem was a simple one, and a woman, miss Cochrane,
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  Speaker 1: solved it. Her machine washes twelve dozen plates or dishes,
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  Speaker 1: wipes them, and dries them in less than three minutes.
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  Speaker 1: A factory in Illinois manufactures his machines and sells them
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  Speaker 1: at a price within the reach of the average middle
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  Speaker 1: class purse. And why should not small households send their
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  Speaker 1: crockery to an establishment as well as their boots. It
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  Speaker 1: is even probable that the two functions brushing and washing
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  Speaker 1: up will be undertaken by the same association. Cleaning rubbing
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  Speaker 1: the skin off your hands when washing and wringing linen,
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  Speaker 1: sweeping floors and brushing carpets, thereby raising clouds of dust
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  Speaker 1: which afterwards occasioned much trouble to dislodge from the places
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  Speaker 1: which they have settled down. All this work is still
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  Speaker 1: done because woman remains a slave, but it tends to
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  Speaker 1: disappear as it can be infinitely better done by machinery.
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  Speaker 1: Machinery of all kinds will be intrance us into households,
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  Speaker 1: and the distribution of motor powered in private houses will
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  Speaker 1: enable people to work them without muscular effort. Such machines
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  Speaker 1: cost very little to manufacture. If we still pay very
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  Speaker 1: much for them, it is because they are not in
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  Speaker 1: general use, and chiefly because an exorbitant taxes levy upon
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  Speaker 1: every machine by the gentlemen who wish to live in
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  Speaker 1: grand style, and who have speculated on land, raw material,
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  Speaker 1: manufacturer sale patents, and duties. But emancipation from domestic toil
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  Speaker 1: will not be brought by small machines. Only households are
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  Speaker 1: emerging from their present state of isolation. They begin to
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  Speaker 1: associate with other households to do common what they did separately.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, in the future we shall not have a
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  Speaker 1: brushing machine, a machine for washing up plates, a third
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  Speaker 1: for washing linen, and so on in each house. To
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  Speaker 1: the future. On the contrary, belongs the common heating apparatus,
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  Speaker 1: which sends heat into each room of the whole district
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  Speaker 1: and spares the lighting of fires. It is already so
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  Speaker 1: in a few American cities a great central frame and
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  Speaker 1: supplies all houses in all rooms with hot water, which
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  Speaker 1: circulates in pipes and to regulate the temperature, you need
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  Speaker 1: only to turn a tap. And should you care to
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  Speaker 1: have a blazing fire in any particular room, you can
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  Speaker 1: light the gas specially supplied for heating purposes from the
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  Speaker 1: central reservoir. All the immense work of cleaning chimneys and
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  Speaker 1: keeping of fires, and a woman knows what time it
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  Speaker 1: takes is disappearing. Candles, lamp, and even gas have had
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  Speaker 1: their day. There are entire cities in which it is
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  Speaker 1: sufficient to press a button for light to burst forth.
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  Speaker 1: And indeed it is a simple question of economy and
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  Speaker 1: knowledge to give yourself a luxury of electric light. And lastly,
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  Speaker 1: also in America, they speak of forming societies for the
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  Speaker 1: almost complete suppression of household work. It would only be
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  Speaker 1: necessary to create a department for every block of houses.
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  Speaker 1: A cart would come to each door and take the
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  Speaker 1: boots to be blocked, the crockery to be washed up,
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  Speaker 1: the linen to be washed, the small things to be mended,
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  Speaker 1: if it were worthwhile, the carpets to be brushed, and
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  Speaker 1: the next morning would bring back the things and trusted
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  Speaker 1: to all well cleaned. A few hours later, your hot
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  Speaker 1: coffee and your eggs done to a nicety would appear
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  Speaker 1: on your table. It is the fact that between twelve
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  Speaker 1: and two o'clock there are more than twenty million Americans
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  Speaker 1: and as many Englishmen who eat roast beef or mutton,
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  Speaker 1: boiled pork, potatoes, and a seasonable vegetable. And at the
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  Speaker 1: lowest figure, eight million fires burn during two or three
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  Speaker 1: hours to roast this meat and to cook these vegetables.
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  Speaker 1: Eight million women spend their time to prepare this meal
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  Speaker 1: that perhaps consist at at most ten different dishes. Fifty
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  Speaker 1: fires burn, wrote an American woman the other day. Where
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  Speaker 1: one would suffice dine at home at your own table
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  Speaker 1: with your children if you like, but only think yourself.
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  Speaker 1: Why should these fifty women waste their whole morning to
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  Speaker 1: prepare a few cups of coffee and a simple meal.
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  Speaker 1: Why fifty fires when two people in one single fire
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  Speaker 1: would suffice to cook all these pieces of meat and
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  Speaker 1: all these vegetables. Choose your own beef or mutton to
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  Speaker 1: be roasted, if your particular season the vegetables to your taste,
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  Speaker 1: if you prefer particular sauce, but have a single kitchen
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  Speaker 1: with a single fire, and organize it as beautifully as
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  Speaker 1: you are able to. Why has woman's work never been
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  Speaker 1: of any account why in every family are the mother
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  Speaker 1: and three or four servants obliged to spend so much
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  Speaker 1: time at what pertains the cooking. Because those who want
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  Speaker 1: to emancipate mankind have not included woman in their dream
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  Speaker 1: of emancipation, and consider it beneath their superior masculine dignity
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  Speaker 1: to think of the kitchen arrangements which they have raid
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  Speaker 1: on the shoulders of that drudge woman. To emancipate woman,
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  Speaker 1: it is not only to open the gates of the university,
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  Speaker 1: the law courts, or the parliaments for her. The emancipated
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  Speaker 1: woman will always throw a domestic toil onto another woman.
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  Speaker 1: To emancipate woman is to free her from the brutalizing
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  Speaker 1: toil of kitchen and wash house. It is to organize
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  Speaker 1: your household in such a way as to enable her
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  Speaker 1: to rear her children if she be so minded, while
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  Speaker 1: still retaining sufficient leisure to take her share of social life.
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  Speaker 1: It will come to pass. As we have said, things
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  Speaker 1: are already improving. Only let us fully understand that a
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  Speaker 1: revolution intoxicated with the beautiful words liberty, equality, solidarity would
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  Speaker 1: not be a revolution if it maintained slavery at home.
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  Speaker 1: Half humanities subjected to slavery of the earth, which still
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  Speaker 1: have to rebel against the other half. End of Chapter
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  Speaker 1: ten