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09 - The Need for Luxury - The Conquest of Bread · Sacred Texts Archive

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Chapter nine, The need for luxury part one man, however, is not
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a being whose exclusive purpose in life is eating, drinking, and providing a
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shelter for himself. As soon as his material once are satisfied, other needs
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of an artistic character will thrust themselves forward. The more ardently aims of life
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vary with each and every individual. In. The more society is civilized,
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the mora will individuality be developed, and the more will desires be varied.
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Even today we see men and women denying themselves necessaries to acquire mere trifles,
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to obtain some particular gratification or some intellectual or material enjoyment. A Christian or
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an ascetic may disapprove of these desires for luxury, but it is precisely these
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trifles that break the monotony of existence and make it agreeable. Would life,
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with all its inevitable sorrows, be worth living if besides daily work, man
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could never obtain a single pleasure according to his individual tastes. If we wish
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for a social revolution, it is no doubt in the first place to give
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bread to all, to transform this execrable society in which we can every day
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see robust workmen dangling their arms for want of an employer who will exploit them.
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Women and children wandering shelterless at night, whole families reduced to dry bread
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men, women and children dying for want of care, and even for want
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of food. It is to put an end to these iniquities that we rebel,
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but we expect more from the revolution. We see that the worker,
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compelled to struggle painfully for bare existence, is reduced to ignorance of these higher
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delights, the highest within man's reach, of science, and especially of scientific
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discovery, of art, and especially of artistic creation. It is in order
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to obtain these joys for all, which are now reserved to a few,
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in order to give leisure and the possibility of developing intellectual capacities, that the
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social Revolution must guarantee daily bread to all. After bread has been secured,
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leisure is the supreme aim, no doubt. Nowadays, when hundreds and thousands
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of human beings are in need of bread, coal, clothing, and shelter,
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luxury is a crime. To satisfy it, the worker's child must go
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without bread. But in a society which all can eat sufficiently, the needs
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which we consider luxuries today will be the more keenly felt, and as all
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men do not and cannot resemble one another, the variety of tastes and needs
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is the chief guarantee of human progress. There will always be, and it
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is desirable that there should always be, men and women whose desire will go
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beyond those of ordinary individuals in some particular direction. Everybody does not need a
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telescope, because even if learning were general, there are people who prefer examining
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things through a microscope to studying the starry heavens, some like statues, some
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pictures. A particular individual has no other ambition than to possess an excellent piano,
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while another is pleased with an accordion. The tastes vary, but the
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artistic needs exist in all. In our present poor, capitalistic to society,
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the man who has artistic needs cannot satisfy them unless he is an heir to
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a large fortune, or by dint of hard work, appropriates to himself and
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an intellectual capital which will enable him to take up a liberal profession. Still
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he cherishes the hope of some day satisfying his tastes more or less, and
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for this reason he reproaches the idealist communist societies. With having the material life
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of each individual as their sole aim. Quote. In your communal stores,
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you may perhaps have bread for all, he says to us, but you
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will not have beautiful pictures, optical instruments, luxurious furniture, artistic jewelry,
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in short, the many things that minister to the infinite variety of human tastes.
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And in this way you suppress the possibility of obtaining anything besides the bread
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and meat which the commune can offer to all, and the gray linen in
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which all your lady citizens will be dressed. These are the objections which all
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communist systems have to consider, in which the founders of new societies established in
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American deserts never understood. They believe that if the community could procure a sufficient
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cloth to dress all its members, the music hall in which the brothers could
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strom a piece of music or act to play from time to time, it
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was enough. They forgot that the feeling of art existed in the agriculturalist as
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well as in the burgher, And notwithstanding that the expression of artistic feeling varies
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according to the difference in culture, in the main it remains the same in
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vain. Did the community guarantee the common necessities of life in vain? Did
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it suppress all education that would tend to develop individuality in vain? Did it
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eliminate all readings save the Bible? Individual tastes broke forth and caused general discontent.
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Quarrels arose when somebody proposed to buy a piano or scientific instruments, and
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the elements of progress flagged. The society could only exist on condition that it
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crushed all individual feeling, all artistic tendency, and all development. Will the
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anarchist commune be impelled by the same direction, Evidently not, if it understands
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that while it produces all that is necessary to material life, it must also
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strive to satisfy all manifestations of the human mind. Part two. We frankly
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confess that when we think of the abyss of poverty and suffering that surrounds us,
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when we hear the heartrending cry of the worker walking the streets begging for
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work, we are loth to discuss the question, how willmen act in a
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society whose members are properly fed to satisfy certain individuals desirous of possessing a piece
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of sev china or a velvet dress, we are tempted to answer. Let
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us make sure of bread to begin with. We shall see to china and
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velvet later on. But as we recognize that man has other needs besides food,
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and as the strength of anarchy lies precisely in that it understands all human
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faculties and all passions and ignores none, we shall, in a few words
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explain how man can contrive to satisfy all his intellectual and artistic needs. We
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have already mentioned that by working four or five hours a day till the age
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of forty five or fifty, man could easily produce all that is necessary to
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guarantee comfort to society. But the day's work, if a man accustomed to
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toil, does not consist of hours, it is a ten hours day for
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three hundred days a year, and lasts all his life. Of course,
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when a man is harnessed to a machine, his health is soon undermined and
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his intelligence is blunted. But when man has the possibility of varying occupations,
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and especially of alternating manual with intellectual work, he can remain occupied without fatigue
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and even with pleasure, for ten or twelve hours a day. Consequently,
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the man who will have done four or five hours of manual work necessary for
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his existence will have before him five or six hours, which he will seek
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to employ according to his taste. And these five or six hours a day
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will fully enable him to procure for himself, if he associates with others all
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he wishes for, in addition to the necessaries guaranteed to all. He will
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discharge first his task in the field, the factory, and so on,
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which he owes to society as his contribution to the general production. And he
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will employ the second half of his day, his week, or his year
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to satisfy his artistic or scientific needs or his hobbies. Thousands of societies will
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spring up to gratify every taste in every possible fancy. Some, for example,
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will give their hours of leisure to literature. They will then form groups
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comprising authors, compositors, printers, engravers, draftsmen, all pursuing a common
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aim, the propagation of ideas that are dear to them. Nowadays, an
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author knows that there is a beast of burden, the worker to whom for
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the sum of a few shillings a day, he can entrust the printing of
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his books. But he hardly cares to know what a printing office is like
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if the compositor suffers from lead poisoning, and if the child who sees to
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the machine dies of anemia, are there not other poor riches to replace them?
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But when there will be no more starvelings ready to sell their work for
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a pittance, when the exploited worker of today will be educated and will have
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his own ideas to put down in black and white and to communicate to others,
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then the authors and scientific men will be compelled to combine among themselves and
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with the printers in order to bring out their prose and their poetry. So
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long as men consider fustion and manual labor as a mark of inferiority, it
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will appear amazing to them to see an author setting up his own book in
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type, for has he not a gymnasium or games by way of diversion.
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But when the opprobrium connected with manual labor has disappeared, when all will have
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to work with their hands, there being no one to do it for them,
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then the authors, as well as their admirers, will soon learn the
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art of handling, composing sticks and type. They will know the pleasure of
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coming together All admirers of the work to be printed, to set up the
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type, to shape it into pages, to take it in its virginal purity
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from the press. These beautiful machines, instruments of torture to the child who
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attends on them from morn till night, will be a source of enjoyment for
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those who will make use of them in order to give voice to the thoughts
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of their favorite author. Will literature lose by it? Will the poet be
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less a poet after having worked out of doors or helped with his hands to
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multiply his work? Will the novelist lose his knowledge of human nature after having
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rubbed shoulders with other men in the forest or the factory, in the laying
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out of a road or on a railway line. Can there be two answers
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to these questions. Maybe some books will be less voluminous, but then more
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will be said on fewer pages. Maybe fewer waste sheets will be published,
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but the matter printed will be more attentively read and more appreciated. The book
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will appeal to a larger circle of better educated readers, who will be more
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competent to judge moreover, the art of printing that has so little progressed in
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Schutenberg is still in its infancy. It takes two hours to compose and type
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what is written in ten minutes. But more expeditious methods of multiplying thought are
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being sought after and will be discovered. What a pity every author does not
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have to take his share in the printing of his works. What progress printing
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would have already made. We should no longer be using the movable letters as
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in the seventeenth century? Part three? Is it a dream to conceive a
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society in which, all having become producers, all having received an education that
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enables them to cultivate science or art, and all having leisure to do so,
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men would combine to publish the works of their choice by contributing each his
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share of manual work. We have already hundreds of learned, literary and other
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societies. And these societies are nothing but voluntary groups of men interested in certain
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branches of learning, and associated for the purpose of publishing their works. The
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authors who write for the periodicals that these societies are not paid, and the
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periodicals are not for sale. They are sent gratis to all quarters of the
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globe, to other societies cultivating the same branches of learning. This member of
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the society may insert in its review a one page note summarizing his observations.
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Another may publish therein and extensive work the results of long years of study,
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while others will confine themselves to consulting their review as a starting point for further
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research. It does not matter. All these authors and readers are associated for
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the production of works in which all of them take an interest. It is
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true that a learned society, like the individual author, goes to a printing
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office where workmen are engaged to do the printing. Nowadays, those who belong
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to the learned societies despise manual labor, which indeed is carried on under very
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bad conditions. But a community which would give a generous philosophic and scientific education
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to all its members would know how to organize manual labor in such a way
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that it would be the pride of humanity. Its learned societies would become associations
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of explorers, lovers of science, and workers, all knowing a manual trade,
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and all interested in science. If, for example, the society is
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studying geology, all will contribute to the exploration of the Earth's strata. Each
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member will take his share in research, and ten thousand observers, where we
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have now only one hundred will do more in a year than we can do
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in twenty years. And when their works are to be published, ten thousand
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men and women skilled in different trades will be ready to draw maps and grave
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designs, compose and print the books with gladness. Will they give their leisure
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in summer to exploration, in winter to indoor work. And when their works
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appear, they will find not only one hundred, but ten thousand readers in
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trit in their common work. This is the direction in which progress is already
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moving. Even today. When England felt the need of a complete dictionary of
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the English language, the birth of a latree who would devote his life to
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this work was not waited for. Volunteers were appealed to, and a thousand
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men offered their services spontaneously and gratuitously, to ransack the libraries, to take
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notes, and to accomplish in a few years a work which one man could
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not complete in his lifetime. In all branches of human intelligence, the same
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spirit is breaking forth, and we should have a very limited knowledge of humanity.
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Could we not guess that the future is announcing itself in such tentative cooperation,
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which is gradually taking the place of individual work. For this dictionary to
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be a really collective work, it would have required that many of volunteer authors,
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printers and printers readers should have worked in common. But something in this
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direction is done already in the socialist press, which offers us examples of manual
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and intellectual work combined. It happens in our newspapers that a socialist author composes
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and led his own article. Such attempts are rare, but they indicate in
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which direction evolution is going. They show the road of liberty in future.
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When a man will have something useful to say, a word that goes beyond
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the thoughts of his century, he will not have to look for an editor
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who might advance the necessary capital. He will look for collaborators among those who
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know the printing trade and who approve the idea of his new work. Together
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they will publish the new book or journal. Literature and journalism will cease to
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be a means of money making and living at the cost of others. But
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is there anyone who knows literature and journalism from within, and who does not
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ardently desire that literature should at last be able to free itself from those who
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formally protected it and who now exploit it, and from the multitude, which,
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with rare exceptions, pays it in proportion to its mediocrity, or to
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the ease with which it adapts itself to the bad taste of the greater number.
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Letters and science will only take their proper place in the work of human
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development when freed from all mercenary bondage. They will be exclusively cultivated by those
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that love them and for those that love them. Part four. Literature,
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science and art must be cultivated by free men. Only on this condition will
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they succeed in emancipating themselves from the yoke of the state of capital and of
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the bourgeois mediocrity which stifles them. What means has the scientist of today to
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make researches that interest him? Should he ask help of the state which can
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only be given to one candidate in one hundred, and which none may obtain
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who does not ostensibly promise to keep to the beaten track. Let us remember
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how the Institute of France censured Darwin, how the Academy of Saint Petersburg treated
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Mendelaef with contempt and how the Royal Society of London refused to publish Jewels paper
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in which he determined the mechanical equivalent of heat, finding it unscientific. It
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is why all great researches, all discoveries revolutionizing science, have been made outside
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academies and universities, either by men rich enough to remain independent, like Darwin
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and Lyle, or by men who undermine their health by working in poverty and
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often in great straits, losing no end of time for want of a laboratory,
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and unable to procure the instruments or books necessary to continue their researches,
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but persevering against hope, and often dying before they had reached the end in
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view. Their name is Legion. Altogether, the system of help granted by
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the state is so bad that science has always endeavored to emancipate itself from it.
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For this very reason, there are thousands of learned societies organized and maintained
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by volunteers in Europe and America, some having developed to such a degree that
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all the resources of subventioned societies and the wealth of millionaires would not buy their
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treasures. No governmental institution is as rich as the Zoological Society of London,
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which is supported by voluntary contributions. It does not by the animals which in
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thousands people its gardens. They are sent by other societies and by collectors of
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the entire world. The Zoological Society of Bombay will send an elephant as a
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gift. Another time a hippopotamus or a rhinoceros is offered by Egyptian naturalists.
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And these magnificent presents are pouring in every day, arriving from all all quarters
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of the globe, birds, reptiles, collections of insects, et cetera.
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These consignments often comprise animals that cannot be bought for all the gold in the
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world. Thus, a traveler who has captured an animal at life's peril and
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now loves it as he would love a child, will give it to the
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society because he is sure it will be cared for. The entrance be paid
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by visitors, and they are numberless suffices for the maintenance of that immense institution.
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What is defective in the Zoological Society of London and in other kindred societies,
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is that the member's fee cannot be paid in work that the keepers and
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numerous employees of this large institution are not recognized as members of the society,
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while many have no other incentive to joining the society than to put the Kabbalistic
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letters f z S. Fellow of the Zoological Society on their cards. In
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a word, what is needed is a more perfect cooperation. We may say
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the same about inventors that we have said of scientists, who does not know
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what sufferings. Nearly all great inventions that have come to light have cost sleepless
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nights, families deprived of bread, want of tools and materials for experiments.
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Is the history of nearly all those who have enriched industry with inventions, which
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are the truly legitimate pride of our civilization. But what are we to do
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to alter conditions that everybody is convinced are bad. Patents have been tried,
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and we know with what results. The inventor sells his patent for a few
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shillings, and the man who has only lent the capital pockets the often enormous
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profits resulting from the invention. Besides, patents isolate the inventor. They compel
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him to keep secret his researches, which therefore end in failure. Where As
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the simplest suggestion coming from a brain less, absorbed in the fundamental idea,
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sometimes suffices to fertilize the invention and make it practical. Like all state control,
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patents hamper the progress of industry thought being incapable of being patented. Patents
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are a crying injustice in theory and in practice. They result in one of
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the great obstacles to the rapid development of invention. What is needed to promote
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the spirit of invention is first of all, the awakening of thought, the
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boldness of conception, which our entire education causes to languish. It is the
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spreading of a scientific education which would increase the number of inquirers one hundredfold.
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It is fate that humanity is going to take a step forward. End of Chapter nine