human
Another cognate cause of crimes of violence was the family tyranny, which was the subject of so many novels and stories of the past, and which once more was the result of private property. Of course that is all ended, since families are held together by no bond of coercion, legal or social, but by mutual liking and affection, and everybody is free to come or go as he or she pleases. Furthermore, our standards of honour and public estimation are very different from the old ones; success in besting our neighbours is a road to renown now closed, let us hope for ever. Each man is free to exercise his special faculty to the utmost, and every one encourages him in so doing. So that we have got rid of the scowling envy, coupled by the poets with hatred, and surely with good reason; heaps of unhappiness and ill-blood were caused by it, which with irritable and passionate men--_i.e._, energetic and active men--often led to violence.
gpt
So that you now withdraw your admission, and say that there is no violence amongst you?
human
No, said he,
gpt
I withdraw nothing; as I told you, such things will happen. Hot blood will err sometimes. A man may strike another, and the stricken strike back again, and the result be a homicide, to put it at the worst. But what then? Shall we the neighbours make it worse still? Shall we think so poorly of each other as to suppose that the slain man calls on us to revenge him, when we know that if he had been maimed, he would, when in cold blood and able to weigh all the circumstances, have forgiven his manner? Or will the death of the slayer bring the slain man to life again and cure the unhappiness his loss has caused?
human
Yes, I said,
gpt
There, neighbour! said the old man, with some exultation
human
You have hit the mark. That _punishment_ of which men used to talk so wisely and act so foolishly, what was it but the expression of their fear? And they had need to fear, since they--_i.e._, the rulers of society--were dwelling like an armed band in a hostile country. But we who live amongst our friends need neither fear nor punish. Surely if we, in dread of an occasional rare homicide, an occasional rough blow, were solemnly and legally to commit homicide and violence, we could only be a society of ferocious cowards. Don't you think so, neighbour?
gpt
Yes, I do, when I come to think of it from that side,
human
Yet you must understand, said the old man,
gpt
But suppose the man has a habit of violence,--kills a man a year, for instance?
human
Such a thing is unknown, said he.
gpt
In a society where there is no punishment to evade, no law to triumph over, remorse will certainly follow transgression.
human
And lesser outbreaks of violence, said I,
gpt
If the ill-doer is not sick or mad (in which case he must be restrained till his sickness or madness is cured) it is clear that grief and humiliation must follow the ill-deed; and society in general will make that pretty clear to the ill-doer if he should chance to be dull to it; and again, some kind of atonement will follow,--at the least, an open acknowledgement of the grief and humiliation. Is it so hard to say, I ask your pardon, neighbour?--Well, sometimes it is hard--and let it be.
human
You think that enough?
gpt
Yes, said he,
human
So, said I,
gpt
Pretty much so, said he;
human
Well, you have no civil law, and no criminal law. But have you no laws of the market, so to say--no regulation for the exchange of wares? for you must exchange, even if you have no property.
gpt
We have no obvious individual exchange, as you saw this morning when you went a-shopping; but of course there are regulations of the markets, varying according to the circumstances and guided by general custom. But as these are matters of general assent, which nobody dreams of objecting to, so also we have made no provision for enforcing them: therefore I don't call them laws. In law, whether it be criminal or civil, execution always follows judgment, and someone must suffer. When you see the judge on his bench, you see through him, as clearly as if he were made of glass, the policeman to emprison, and the soldier to slay some actual living person. Such follies would make an agreeable market, wouldn't they?
human
Certainly, said I,
gpt
You are right, neighbour, said he.
human
Although there are so many, indeed by far the greater number amongst us, who would be unhappy if they were not engaged in actually making things, and things which turn out beautiful under their hands,--there are many, like the housekeepers I was speaking of, whose delight is in administration and organisation, to use long-tailed words; I mean people who like keeping things together, avoiding waste, seeing that nothing sticks fast uselessly. Such people are thoroughly happy in their business, all the more as they are dealing with actual facts, and not merely passing counters round to see what share they shall have in the privileged taxation of useful people, which was the business of the commercial folk in past days. Well, what are you going to ask me next?
gpt
How do you manage with politics?
human
I am glad that it is of _me_ that you ask that question; I do believe that anybody else would make you explain yourself, or try to do so, till you were sickened of asking questions. Indeed, I believe I am the only man in England who would know what you mean; and since I know, I will answer your question briefly by saying that we are very well off as to politics,--because we have none. If ever you make a book out of this conversation, put this in a chapter by itself, after the model of old Horrebow's Snakes in Iceland.
gpt
I will,
human
How about your relations with foreign nations?
gpt
I will not affect not to know what you mean, said he,
human
Does not that make the world duller?
gpt
Why?
human
The obliteration of national variety,
gpt
Nonsense, he said, somewhat snappishly.
human
Cross the water and see. You will find plenty of variety: the landscape, the building, the diet, the amusements, all various. The men and women varying in looks as well as in habits of thought; the costume far more various than in the commercial period. How should it add to the variety or dispel the dulness, to coerce certain families or tribes, often heterogeneous and jarring with one another, into certain artificial and mechanical groups, and call them nations, and stimulate their patriotism--_i.e._, their foolish and envious prejudices?
gpt
Well--I don't know how,
human
That's right, said Hammond cheerily;
gpt
Good, said I,
human
No, not at all, said he, somewhat snappishly;
gpt
H'm, well, said I,
human
I am not so sure of that.
gpt
I take, you, neighbour; they only _pretended_ to this serious difference of opinion; for if it had existed they could not have dealt together in the ordinary business of life; couldn't have eaten together, bought and sold together, gambled together, cheated other people together, but must have fought whenever they met: which would not have suited them at all. The game of the masters of politics was to cajole or force the public to pay the expense of a luxurious life and exciting amusement for a few cliques of ambitious persons: and the _pretence_ of serious difference of opinion, belied by every action of their lives, was quite good enough for that. What has all that got to do with us?
human
Why, nothing, I should hope. But I fear--In short, I have been told that political strife was a necessary result of human nature.
gpt
Human nature! cried the old boy, impetuously;
human
Well, said I,
gpt
I suppose there would be a difference according to circumstances in people's action about these matters.
human
I should think so, indeed, said he.
gpt
At all events, experience shows that it is so. Amongst us, our differences concern matters of business, and passing events as to them, and could not divide men permanently. As a rule, the immediate outcome shows which opinion on a given subject is the right one; it is a matter of fact, not of speculation. For instance, it is clearly not easy to knock up a political party on the question as to whether haymaking in such and such a country-side shall begin this week or next, when all men agree that it must at latest begin the week after next, and when any man can go down into the fields himself and see whether the seeds are ripe enough for the cutting.
human
And you settle these differences, great and small, by the will of the majority, I suppose?
gpt
Certainly, said he;
human
How is that managed?
gpt
Well, said he,
human
Very good, said I;
gpt
As a matter of principle and according to the rule of such cases, the question must then lapse, and the majority, if so narrow, has to submit to sitting down under the _status quo_. But I must tell you that in point of fact the minority very seldom enforces this rule, but generally yields in a friendly manner.
human
But do you know, said I,
gpt
I grant you that our methods have that drawback. But what is to be done? We can't get _anyone_ amongst us to complain of his not always having his own way in the teeth of the community, when it is clear that _everybody_ cannot have that indulgence. What is to be done?
human
Well, said I,
gpt
I don't know.
human
The only alternatives to our method that I can conceive of are these. First, that we should choose out, or breed, a class of superior persons capable of judging on all matters without consulting the neighbours; that, in short, we should get for ourselves what used to be called an aristocracy of intellect; or, secondly, that for the purpose of safe-guarding the freedom of the individual will, we should revert to a system of private property again, and have slaves and slave-holders once more. What do you think of those two expedients?
gpt
Well, said I,
human
Yes, yes, I quite agree with you--and so we all do.
gpt
Yes, I said,
human
Shrewdly put; and yet from the point of view of the native of another planet. If the man of the minority does find his feelings hurt, doubtless he may relieve them by refusing to help in building the bridge. But, dear neighbour, that is not a very effective salve for the wound caused by the 'tyranny of a majority' in our society; because all work that is done is either beneficial or hurtful to every member of society. The man is benefited by the bridge-building if it turns out a good thing, and hurt by it if it turns out a bad one, whether he puts a hand to it or not; and meanwhile he is benefiting the bridge- builders by his work, whatever that may be. In fact, I see no help for him except the pleasure of saying 'I told you so' if the bridge-building turns out to be a mistake and hurts him; if it benefits him he must suffer in silence. A terrible tyranny our Communism, is it not? Folk used often to be warned against this very unhappiness in times past, when for every well-fed, contented person you saw a thousand miserable starvelings. Whereas for us, we grow fat and well-liking on the tyranny; a tyranny, to say the truth, not to be made visible by any microscope I know. Don't be afraid, my friend; we are not going to seek for troubles by calling our peace and plenty and happiness by ill names whose very meaning we have forgotten!
gpt
Are there any more questions, dear guest? The morning is waning fast amidst my garrulity?
human
Yes, said I.
gpt
I was expecting Dick and Clara to make their appearance any moment: but is there time to ask just one or two questions before they come?
human
Try it, dear neighbour--try it, said old Hammond.
gpt
For the more you ask me the better I am pleased; and at any rate if they do come and find me in the middle of an answer, they must sit quiet and pretend to listen till I come to an end. It won't hurt them; they will find it quite amusing enough to sit side by side, conscious of their proximity to each other.
human
Good; I will go on talking without noticing them when they come in. Now, this is what I want to ask you about--to wit, how you get people to work when there is no reward of labour, and especially how you get them to work strenuously?
gpt
No reward of labour? said Hammond, gravely.
human
The reward of labour is _life_. Is that not enough?
gpt
But no reward for especially good work,
human
Plenty of reward, said he--
gpt
Well, but, said I,
human
Yes, yes, said he,
gpt
I know the ancient platitude,--wholly untrue; indeed, to us quite meaningless. Fourier, whom all men laughed at, understood the matter better.
human
Why is it meaningless to you?
gpt
Because it implies that all work is suffering, and we are so far from thinking that, that, as you may have noticed, whereas we are not short of wealth, there is a kind of fear growing up amongst us that we shall one day be short of work. It is a pleasure which we are afraid of losing, not a pain.
human
Yes, said I,
gpt
I have noticed that, and I was going to ask you about that also. But in the meantime, what do you positively mean to assert about the pleasurableness of work amongst you?
human
This, that _all_ work is now pleasurable; either because of the hope of gain in honour and wealth with which the work is done, which causes pleasurable excitement, even when the actual work is not pleasant; or else because it has grown into a pleasurable _habit_, as in the case with what you may call mechanical work; and lastly (and most of our work is of this kind) because there is conscious sensuous pleasure in the work itself; it is done, that is, by artists.
gpt
I see, said I.
human
Can you now tell me how you have come to this happy condition? For, to speak plainly, this change from the conditions of the older world seems to me far greater and more important than all the other changes you have told me about as to crime, politics, property, marriage.
gpt
You are right there, said he.
human
Indeed, you may say rather that it is this change which makes all the others possible. What is the object of Revolution? Surely to make people happy. Revolution having brought its foredoomed change about, how can you prevent the counter-revolution from setting in except by making people happy? What! shall we expect peace and stability from unhappiness? The gathering of grapes from thorns and figs from thistles is a reasonable expectation compared with that! And happiness without happy daily work is impossible.
gpt
Most obviously true, said I: for I thought the old boy was preaching a little.
human
But answer my question, as to how you gained this happiness.
gpt
Briefly, said he,
human
Go on, said I,
gpt
Yes, I will, said he;
human
No, no,
gpt
It is clear from all that we hear and read, that in the last age of civilisation men had got into a vicious circle in the matter of production of wares. They had reached a wonderful facility of production, and in order to make the most of that facility they had gradually created (or allowed to grow, rather) a most elaborate system of buying and selling, which has been called the World-Market; and that World-Market, once set a-going, forced them to go on making more and more of these wares, whether they needed them or not. So that while (of course) they could not free themselves from the toil of making real necessaries, they created in a never-ending series sham or artificial necessaries, which became, under the iron rule of the aforesaid World- Market, of equal importance to them with the real necessaries which supported life. By all this they burdened themselves with a prodigious mass of work merely for the sake of keeping their wretched system going.
human
Yes--and then?
gpt
Why, then, since they had forced themselves to stagger along under this horrible burden of unnecessary production, it became impossible for them to look upon labour and its results from any other point of view than one--to wit, the ceaseless endeavour to expend the least possible amount of labour on any article made, and yet at the same time to make as many articles as possible. To this 'cheapening of production', as it was called, everything was sacrificed: the happiness of the workman at his work, nay, his most elementary comfort and bare health, his food, his clothes, his dwelling, his leisure, his amusement, his education--his life, in short--did not weigh a grain of sand in the balance against this dire necessity of 'cheap production' of things, a great part of which were not worth producing at all. Nay, we are told, and we must believe it, so overwhelming is the evidence, though many of our people scarcely _can_ believe it, that even rich and powerful men, the masters of the poor devils aforesaid, submitted to live amidst sights and sounds and smells which it is in the very nature of man to abhor and flee from, in order that their riches might bolster up this supreme folly. The whole community, in fact, was cast into the jaws of this ravening monster, 'the cheap production' forced upon it by the World-Market.
human
Dear me! said I.
gpt
But what happened? Did not their cleverness and facility in production master this chaos of misery at last? Couldn't they catch up with the World-Market, and then set to work to devise means for relieving themselves from this fearful task of extra labour?
human
Did they even try to? said he.
gpt
I am not sure. You know that according to the old saw the beetle gets used to living in dung; and these people, whether they found the dung sweet or not, certainly lived in it.
human
But the labour-saving machines?