The Next Step: A Plan for Economic World FederationNearing, Scott
History
The Next Step: A Plan for Economic World Federation
Nearing, Scott
Economic history
This new, socialized leisure, which yesterday was a privilege of the
ruling classes and of many of the artisans and farmers, which is to-day
the heritage of primitive peoples, and which has been so largely lost in
the rush of machine production, will be used: (1) to make and to
maintain social contacts; (2) for creative activities; (3) for
recreation, and (4) for whatever other means are necessary to promote
the growth of the individual.
An effective society must be composed of effective individuals. In no
other way can a high social standard be maintained. The growth of the
individual, in a modern community depends, in large measure, on the way
in which he uses his leisure.
6. _Culture and Human Aspiration_
At various stages in the development of society there have emerged
cultures founded on some particular group of human aspirations. Thus the
forward-looking side of man's nature expressed itself.
After he had finished the daily tasks by means of which he earned a
subsistence, or, more usually, as a member of a leisure class that was
exempt from the necessity of labor, the man dominated by strong creative
impulses sought to embody, in some concrete form, the desires which he
felt springing up within him, and which could not be satisfied by
physical activity. He turned, therefore, to drawing, to painting, to
music, to speculation, to discussion.
The present age has not as yet developed its culture, and it seems now
as though capitalism, with its heritage of revolution, and its curse of
instability and hurry, would not persist long enough to establish a
well-defined culture. Hence, in the present society, multitudes feel
that certain finer things are excluded from their lives because the
ground is so littered with possessions, and because life is too harried
and too sordid to give them place.
These forces, the creative impulses of the artist and the builder, yearn
unspeakably for expression. Each human breast holds a void that is the
result of their suppression, and it is this, perhaps, more than anything
else, that accounts for the unrest and dissatisfaction that are so
characteristic of the present generation.
In the past only the favored few had a chance to express their most holy
aspirations. The development of modern industry, with its facility in
the production of livelihood, promises a time, and that at no very great
distance, when this opportunity may be common property, and men
everywhere may be able to participate in that unending search after
love, beauty, justice, truth--the highest of which humanity is capable.
All of these things lie outside the realm of economics, yet none of them
is possible for the masses of mankind until there is established a
system of economic life that will provide the necessaries upon which
physical health depends, together with an amount of leisure sufficient
to enable a generation to find itself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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