teaching, can give it to a degree of which capitalism is
wholly incapable.
A general sense of progress and achievement is
an immense stimulus to all forms of creative work.
For this reason, a great deal will depend, not only
in material ways, upon the question whether methods
of production in industry and agriculture become
stereotyped or continue to change rapidly as they
have done during the last hundred years. Improved
methods of production will be much more obviously
than now to the interest of the community at large,
when what every man receives is his due share of the
total produce of labor. But there will probably not
be any individuals with the same direct and intense
interest in technical improvements as now belongs
to the capitalist in manufacture. If the natural
conservatism of the workers is not to prove stronger
than their interest in increasing production, it will
be necessary that, when better methods are introduced
by the workers in any industry, part at least
of the benefit should be allowed for a time to be
retained by them. If this is done, it may be presumed
that each Guild will be continually seeking for new
processes or inventions, and will value those technical
parts of scientific research which are useful for this
purpose. With every improvement, the question will
arise whether it is to be used to give more leisure or to
increase the dividend of commodities. Where there
is so much more leisure than there is now, there will
be many more people with a knowledge of science or
an understanding of art. The artist or scientific
investigator will be far less cut off than he is at
present from the average citizen, and this will almost
inevitably be a stimulus to his creative energy.
I think we may fairly conclude that, from the
point of view of all three requisites for art and science,
namely, training, freedom and appreciation, State
Socialism would largely fail to remove existing
evils and would introduce new evils of its own; but
Guild Socialism, or even Syndicalism, if it adopted
a liberal policy toward those who preferred to work
less than the usual number of hours at recognized
occupations, might be immeasurably preferable to
anything that is possible under the rule of capitalism.
There are dangers, but they will all vanish if the
importance of liberty is adequately acknowledged.
In this as in nearly everything else, the road to all
that is best is the road of freedom.
CHAPTER VIII
THE WORLD AS IT COULD BE MADE
IN the daily lives of most men and women, fear
plays a greater part than hope: they are more
filled with the thought of the possessions that others
may take from them, than of the joy that they might
create in their own lives and in the lives with which
they come in contact.
It is not so that life should be lived.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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