Coming now to that great majority who will not
choose idleness, I think we may assume that, with the
help of science, and by the elimination of the vast
amount of unproductive work involved in internal and
international competition, the whole community
could be kept in comfort by means of four hours'
work a day. It is already being urged by experienced
employers that their employes can actually produce
as much in a six-hour day as they can when they
work eight hours. In a world where there is a much
higher level of technical instruction than there is now
the same tendency will be accentuated. People will
be taught not only, as at present, one trade, or one
small portion of a trade, but several trades, so that
they can vary their occupation according to the
seasons and the fluctuations of demand. Every industry
will be self-governing as regards all its internal
affairs, and even separate factories will decide for
themselves all questions that only concern those who
work in them. There will not be capitalist management,
as at present, but management by elected representatives,
as in politics. Relations between different
groups of producers will be settled by the Guild
Congress, matters concerning the community as the
inhabitants of a certain area will continue to be
decided by Parliament, while all disputes between
Parliament and the Guild Congress will be decided
by a body composed of representatives of both in
equal numbers.
Payment will not be made, as at present, only for
work actually required and performed, but for willingness
to work. This system is already adopted in
much of the better paid work: a man occupies a certain
position, and retains it even at times when there
happens to be very little to do. The dread of unemployment
and loss of livelihood will no longer haunt
men like a nightmare. Whether all who are willing
to work will be paid equally, or whether exceptional
skill will still command exceptional pay, is a matter
which may be left to each guild to decide for itself.
An opera-singer who received no more pay than a
scene-shifter might choose to be a scene-shifter until
the system was changed: if so, higher pay would
probably be found necessary. But if it were freely
voted by the Guild, it could hardly constitute a
grievance.
Whatever might be done toward making work
agreeable, it is to be presumed that some trades would
always remain unpleasant. Men could be attracted
into these by higher pay or shorter hours, instead of
being driven into them by destitution. The community
would then have a strong economic motive
for finding ways of diminishing the disagreeableness
of these exceptional trades.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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