CHAPTER VI.
LABOR.
“Before I can give you a clear description of the interior of the ‘big-house,’ and the work that is done in it by the inmates, it will be necessary to give you a brief explanation of our system and idea of labor,” continued Mr. Midith.
“In the first place you want to bear in mind that our day’s labor, as I have told you before, is very short, in an average less than two hours a day; but there is no place in our society for an idler. All sound, able-bodied persons, men, women and children, are expected to work at some suitable productive labor. We teach that labor is necessary and honorable; that idleness is robbery and a disgrace. Our public opinion shuns an idler or unproductive laborer as much as you shun a burglar. We believe that a proper amount of physical labor is healthful, that it is essential for the highest development of body and mind. We further believe that children should be taught to labor while young, because labor becomes pleasurable only when the habit of laboring is acquired during childhood and youth. A child should be taught to be independent, to support itself by agreeable, healthful labor as early as possible, for many reasons which I will tell you some other time. I find here on earth that many parents believe that manual labor is a disgrace. With us, you will notice, it is just the reverse. We believe that a parent who does not teach a child to labor while it is young is the child’s greatest enemy, for such a child will be a slave to labor ever after.
“We classify labor as productive, unproductive and destructive. When I speak of labor here, I mean that kind of labor only which is expended in the pursuit of acquiring the material subsistence; and in the rearing of offspring I include only the toilsome exertions, not the sportive exercises. Plowing, sowing, reaping, cooking washing, planting, digging a needful well, mining iron, building a house, making a coat, writing a useful book, running an engine, holding and carrying a baby beyond a certain length of time, etc., are examples of productive labor. Productive labor, then, as here restricted, is that kind of labor which adds to the aggregate amount of the community’s material wealth in the form of food, clothing, shelter and luxuries, or that which is expended in the rearing of offspring. After a productive day’s labor, the world is richer in material wealth than it was before. The day’s labor must have produced something. It must have augmented not only the labor’s individual wealth, but the aggregate wealth of the world.
“Unproductive labor is that kind which neither tends to produce nor destroy material wealth. No amount of unproductive labor produces food for a single meal. To be digging wells where there is no need for water; to carry a brick to and fro from one place to another; to plant a potato for the sake of planting; to plow a field and not sow and harvest it; to build a house and not utilize it; to mine coal and not use it; to gamble, etc., are examples of unproductive labor. No matter how much the laborer perspires, how long and how toilsome a day he makes, how diligent and honest he may be, all his efforts and toil expended in this manner do not add one iota to the aggregate material wealth of the nation or of the world.
“Destructive labor is that kind of labor which actually destroys wealth, which, we have seen, can be produced only by productive labor.
“For examples: A soldier tearing up or otherwise destroying railroads; a burglar exploding a safe; an army burning a city; a miner mining iron that is to be manufactured into a gun with which life and property are to be destroyed; a malicious destruction of a tree or useful plant, etc., etc.
“We can plainly see that if we should all engage in destructive labor, all the material wealth would soon be destroyed, and the more industrious we would be in the expenditure of destructive labor, the less material wealth we would have left. Idleness is a virtue as compared with destructive labor.
“Perhaps more than three-fourths of your labor here on earth is either comparatively unproductive or destructive. Nearly all your fencing, banking, mining gold for money, speculating, soldiering, three-fourths of your so-called mercantile business, your sectarian preaching and teaching, all your political scheming, manufacturing and selling liquor and tobacco are unproductive or destructive. Besides these few cases that I have mentioned there are countless other ways in which you expend a vast amount of unproductive and destructive labor, which I can not now make you clearly understand, but which you will see hereafter as we compare our social and industrial system with yours.
“By the foregoing explanation we see that an industrious person is not necessarily a producer. One may be as industrious in the destruction of wealth as in the production of it. A millionaire, who labors to accumulate, by some scheme, the wealth that others have earned, to augment his individual fortune, is an unproductive or destructive laborer, not a productive one. He robs some person and thereby makes the world worse. His object is not to earn, but to appropriate what others have already earned or produced. It is not always easy in your system to determine whether a certain kind of labor is productive, unproductive, or destructive. Intelligence, the basis of all activity, is the only criterion that can determine it.”
“Do the Marsites all work only at productive labor?” asked Mr. Uwins.
“Yes,” replied Mr. Midith. “We gradually eliminated all unproductive and destructive labor as our social and industrial system advanced.
“But allow me, ladies and gentlemen, to tell you right here, there is one other point in connection with labor that I shall have to speak to you about, in order to give you a clear understanding of our idea of labor, and that point is this: not all human exertion, whether performed on earth or on Mars, is considered laborious or toilsome. For instance, the beating of the heart, eating, breathing, voluntary conversation, a ride or walk for recreation, pursuing a favorite study or occupation, shopping as you call it, entertaining a welcome friend, being engaged in a certain kind of fancy work, are not considered even by you as toilsome labor. They have either become delightful exercises, or they have lost their conscious sensitiveness all together, like the beating of the heart, etc.
“All well organized persons find delight in being always engaged in some active, physical or mental pursuits, during their waking hours. Absolute quietude and idleness are very burdensome to them. So, too, is excessive labor toilsome to them. But by the aid and improvement of our machinery, by shortening the day of manual labor, by acquiring the habit of working while young, by receiving a large return for labor, by laboring in company with pleasant companions, by having all the necessary and convenient tools, by becoming continually more and more proficient in our occupation, by appreciating with a keener, esthetic sense the improved products of an advancing industry, and by laboring more and more under individual freedom, all exertions tend to pass from the sphere of toilsome labor into the sphere of delightful, sportive exercise, and this change will, no doubt, continue until a complete adjustment is effected.
“You see our machinery and tools are so perfect and easily manipulated, our conveniences so complete, our day’s manual labor so short, our return of labor so abundant, our company so pleasant, our choice of occupation so free, our liberty so unimpaired, our esthetic sense so keen, that nearly all our work has passed into play, and is almost as delightful and pleasant to us as activity is to a child.
“With you things are just the reverse. Your machinery is not so perfect, your tools are not so handy, your conveniences for labor are very few, your day of manual labor is so long and toilsome, your returns go largely to the rich idlers or unproductive labors, your companions are often rival enemies, your occupation whatever you can get to do, your overseer a cruel, heartless tyrant, your appreciations for accomplishments have been withered by anxiety and poverty. Nothing but the bare necessity of acquiring the material subsistence for a meager livelihood spurs you on to your almost unendurable and endless toil, which generally lasts until the premature grave entombs the remains of your worn-out, lifeless body. Under your sad social and industrial arrangement, it is no wonder that you dishonor labor, that you endeavor by all schemes to escape that endless tread-mill of toil to which you are generally hitched for life by the tugs of cruelty, want of knowledge and superstition.
“It is now time for our afternoon work, and, whenever hereafter I tell you anything about our wealth and labor, always endeavor to think of them as they are considered by the Marsites, and not as you look at wealth and labor here. Always bear in mind that organized-self and mental wealth are necessary constituents of our genuine wealth, and that the old toilsome labor has almost completely passed into delightful sportive exercise.”