CHAPTER IV

THE PRACTICAL VOCATIONS

Medicine is the executive of the science of physiology, and the others, on which it depends. The physician has a certain work to do, a certain need to satisfy—the need of health, the alleviation of pain. In endeavoring to satisfy this need he uses the sciences that underlie his vocation and in turn promotes those sciences.

On the lower levels of agriculture and the industrial arts the same holds true. Our physical necessities vociferously demand satisfaction. They cannot wait. Men must have food or they perish. The agriculturist supplies the food they need. But the spiritual view of life declares that man, _while_ engaged in satisfying his material wants, shall in so doing assert his spiritual nature. He is to hammer out his personality on the anvil of his empirical necessities. Even as human beings do not partake of food like animals, but indicate by the manner in which they take it the superior worth of the being who is dependent on food, so the agriculturist who raises the food should testify to his spiritual character. He does so in part at least by his reaction on the sciences which he applies, biology, chemistry, etc. The same holds good of the industrial occupations. The work a man does should be the means of promoting the development of his mental and æsthetic nature, and of his will. The mental and æsthetic development is acquired by mastering and reacting on the science and the art that enter into the trade. The development of the will, the most important of all, depends on the organic relations of the industrial workers among themselves and to their chiefs.

This raises the problem of the right organization of “industrial vocationalists” from the ethical point of view, and the following questions present themselves: Shall the present division into the two hostile camps of trade-unionists and employers continue? Or is it to be regarded as a makeshift, perhaps necessary during the present period of transition, but certainly untenable in the long run? Is the uniform arrangement contemplated by Socialism desirable, the government of every industry and indeed of every vocation by the representatives of the community as a whole? Shall what is called coöperation be adopted, that is, the formation of independent groups of workers on the voluntary principle, associated for the purpose of equably dividing the profits?

The three alternatives mentioned may be examined from various points of view. Here we consider them from the ethical point of view. Assuming that the ethical end of life is to be supreme, what kind of industrial re-organization of society will be most in harmony with it? All three plans are open to the ethical objection that they concentrate attention on the material gain to be derived from the industry instead of on the specific service which those who follow the industry as a vocation are to render. Collective bargaining between unions and employers is after all just bargaining. Socialism differs from trade-unionism not in the object so much as in the means. Instead of securing for the workers a larger share it would secure for them at once an approximately equal share. Coöperation aims at the same result as Socialism by voluntary association instead of by collective compulsion.

None of the three plans is ethically satisfying, and a fourth arrangement should be contemplated. Its characteristics are the following:

1. The idea of service to be pre-eminent instead of the gain, the wage or salary to be apportioned as the means of sustaining the worker in the best possible performance of the service.

2. The work done by the workers to be the means of developing them mentally, æsthetically and volitionally, the educational features therefore to be pre-eminent.

3. The industrial group to be transformed into a social sub-organism (in the ethical sense a sub-organ of the larger organism of the nation). By this is meant that the employers cease to be employers and become functionaries, while each worker in his place and in his degree likewise becomes a functionary. A common social service group will thus be formed embracing the chiefs and the humbler workers. The chiefs will be the executive and administrative functionaries, and will be safeguarded in the due discharge of their proper functions. The workers will not attempt to wrest from their chiefs as they do at present the directive functions which properly belong to the latter (subject, however, to due control). To each of the lesser functionaries in turn will be assigned a sphere within which a relative independence would be his.

The industry as a whole will be an _organ_ of the _corpus sociale_, and this its character will be expressed in its government. The workers, not required to render implicit obedience to rules imposed upon them by masters and superintendents, will have a voice in the legislation of the industry, in framing the policy of the industry, in electing the chiefs, and in this way the development of the will, upon which I lay the greatest stress, will be attained. The will of the worker, at present fettered, will be liberated by the opportunity given it to become enlightened and effectual.

I am not here describing a scheme which is to be immediately launched in its completeness. I am illustrating the ethical principle as I see it as applied to this particular vocation. I am endeavoring to show how an occupation can be changed into a vocation. The constitutional government of industries would be an intermediate stage between the present autocratic form, in which more or less absolute power is vested in the employer, and that organic constitution of industry which is ethically desirable.

Thus far the following plans have been before the minds of social reformers:

A. Competition, or life and death struggle.

B. Modified competition, or raising the plane of competition, as it is called, that is, doing away with the more ferocious and unscrupulous methods of competition.

C. Socialism.

D. Coöperation.

I propose to add (E) organization in the ethical sense. The word “organization” is deplorably misused at present. It is commonly employed as a synonym for aggregation, which is the very reverse of organization. Thus “organized labor” really means aggregate labor, labor acting _en masse_.

A further remark on the difference between industrial vocationalism as outlined and Socialism may be of use in clarifying the main idea. The relative independence of the social sub-organism is the salient point. This kind of independence is based on the general conception underlying my entire ethical philosophy, that the ethical quality resides in uniqueness in distinctiveness, that ethical progress consists in driving towards individualization in the sense of personalization. This as opposed to those philosophies of life that see the ethical quality in uniformity. Socialism is on the side of uniformity. It is indeed an extreme expression of it. If sometimes it is urged that the relative independence of the vocational groups might be recognized in the socialistic state, the answer is that the tendency would be in the opposite direction. And besides, the all-important question is to what end the relative independence is to be used. Under socialism it would be used for the purpose of increasing the quantity of valuable products at the disposal of the community as a whole. From the ethical point of view, the independence of the organic group would be used to insure reciprocal relations, and by means of these the development mentally, æsthetically and volitionally of _the producers_. The distinction certainly is clear enough to its members, whichever way the reader may incline.[78]

_The Historical Sciences_

I refer now briefly to historical science. The ethical aim of history and its adjunct sciences is to redeem from oblivion as far as is possible the past of the human race, its documents, its monuments, the knowledge of its political adventures, its customs, laws and institutions, its religious beliefs. In view of the lacunae in our knowledge a complete revival of the past is impossible. We must therefore principally seek to understand the ruling ideas that have governed our ancestors, in the family, in the state, etc. The task of the historian is to present these ideas as seen in the light of their consequences, so as to help us revalue them from the point of view of present experience and insight. The historian will thus enable us to carry over from the past what is truly valuable, for the business we have in hand.

There is just now a strong reaction against the kind of historical science which deals principally with wars and the actions of princes or of great leaders. Detailed attention is being given to the more obscure life of the people. But it must be remembered that mere penetration into the lower strata of bygone societies, the mere heaping up of facts concerning mass movements, is as unprofitable as the more picturesque recitals with which works on history were formerly adorned. The mass movements and _the ideas_ which gave rise to them should be set clear as far as possible; but without the evaluation and the revaluation, or the ethical appraisement, the voluminous knowledge of details is merely stupefying, and leaves us as much at sea as ever.[79]

Many men have read many books on history, and filled their minds with information on subjects like the Protestant Reformation or the French Revolution, without being in the least wiser themselves, or more fitted to enlighten others in respect to the religious and ethical problems which were involved in these great movements, and which still touch us so closely today. As to the ordinary high school or college student, what as a rule does he carry away from his study of past “history”?

FOOTNOTES:

[78] The vocational group must be independent because the expert familiar with the conditions under which a service is performed is specially competent to decide on the improvements required to render the conditions more favorable to the development of human nature, the service more adequate. The representatives of the collective community, that is of the inexpert, outside mass (inexpert in respect to this particular service) can never perform the same office.

With regard to the present state of industry the gigantic obstacle in the way of improvement is obviously the subjection of the man to the machine. The great hardship which the millions of factory operatives suffer is not only the insufficient wage, it is the depersonalizing effect produced by the substitution of the machine for the hand and the blind subjection of adult workers to the arbitrary will of superiors. (Compare what I have said on this subject in the chapter on “An Ethical Programme of Social Reform” in _The World Crisis_.)

[79] Think of Mommsen, the author of a thousand treatises, whose knowledge of the facts of Roman history was unsurpassed and probably unequalled. Yet is his judgment on Cæsar or Cæsarism helpful as an ethical appraisement?