Part 5

Of course that is an extreme case. But similar differences in proportion to the nature-basis exist between the amounts of labour that are requisite in the other branches of production represented in the various social communities of Europe. The differences are not so marked as in the case of bananas and wheat,--still, they exist. Accordingly, it is inherent to the body economic, that the amount of labour-power which man has to put into the economic process is proportionate to the nature-basis of his economic activities. Compare the wheat-yields alone:--In Germany, in districts of average fertility, the returns on wheat cultivation represent about a sevenfold to eightfold crop on the seed sewn; in Chile, the crop is twelvefold; in Northern Mexico, seventeenfold; in Peru, twenty fold. (See Jensen.)

The whole of this living complex of processes, that begin with man's relation to nature, and continue through all that man has to do to transform nature's products, down to the point where they are ready for consumption,--these processes, and these alone for a healthy social organism, comprise its economic system. In the social organism, the economic system occupies somewhat the same place as is occupied in the whole human organism by the head-system, which conditions the individual's abilities. But this head-system is dependent on the lung-and-heart system; and in the same way the economic system is dependent on the services of human labour. The head, however, cannot of itself alone regulate the breathing; and neither should the system of human labour-power be regulated by the forces that are operative within the economic life itself. It is through his interests that man is engaged in economic life, and these have their foundation in the needs of his soul and spirit.--In what way can a social organism most expediently incorporate men's interests, so that on the one hand the individual may find in this social organism the best possible means of satisfying his personal interest, whilst being economically employed to the best advantage?--This is the question that has to be practically solved in the institutions of the body economic. It can only be solved, if these individual interests are given really free scope, and if at the same time there exists the will and possibility to do what is necessary to their satisfaction. These interests arise in a region outside the confines of the economic life. They grow up as man's own being unfolds its soul and physical nature. It is the business of economic life to make arrangements for their satisfaction. The only arrangement however that the economic life can make, are such as are limited to the delivery and exchange of commodities,--that is of goods which acquire their value from men's wants. The value of a commodity comes from the person consuming it. And owing to the fact, that its value comes from the consumer, a commodity occupies quite a different position within the social organism from other things that have a value for man as part of that organism. Study the whole circle of economic life, putting aside all preconceptions,--the production, circulation and consumption of commodities going on within it. One observes at once the difference in character between the relation that arises when one man makes commodities for another, and that human relation that has its foundation in mutual right. One will not however stop short at merely observing the difference; one will follow it up practically, and insist that economic life and the life of "right" should be kept completely separate within the body social. Institutions devoted to the production and exchange of commodities require men to develope forms of activity that are not immediately productive of the very best impulses for their mutual relations in "right." Within the economic sphere man turns to his fellow because it suits their reciprocal interests. Radically different is the link between man and man in the sphere of "right."

It may be thought perhaps, that the distinction which life requires between the two things is adequately recognised, if the institutions established for the purposes of economic life also make provision for the "rights" that are involved in the mutual relations of the people engaged in it. But such a notion has no root in reality. The relation "in right," that necessarily exists between a man and his fellows, is one that can only be rightly felt and lived outside the economic sphere, on totally different soil, not inside it. In the healthy social organism, therefore, there must be another system of life, alongside the economic life and independent of it, where human rights can grow up and find suitable administration. But the "rights" life is, strictly, the political sphere,--the true sphere of the State. If the interests that men have to serve in their economic life are carried over into the legislation and administration of the "rights" State, then these rights as they grow up will merely be an expression of economic interests; whilst, if the "rights" State takes on the management of economic affairs, it is no longer fitted to rule men's "life of rights"; since all its measures and institutions will be forced to serve man's need for commodities, and thereby diverted from those impulses which make for the life of rights.

A healthy social organism, therefore, requires, as a second branch alongside the body economic, the independent political life of the State. In the separate body economic, the forces of economic life itself will guide men to such institutions as best serve the production and interchange of commodities. In the body politic, the State, institutions will arise, where dealings between individuals and groups will be settled on lines that satisfy men's sense of right. This demand for complete separation of the "rights-State" from the economic sphere proceeds from a standpoint of reality. Reality is not the standpoint of those who seek to combine the life of rights and economics in one. The people engaged in economic life of course possess the sense of right, but they will only be able to legislate and administrate in the way "right" requires,--i.e., from the sense of right alone without any admixture of economic interests,--when they come to consider questions of right independently, in a "rights" State that takes, quâ State, no part in economic life. A "rights" State, such as this, has its own legislative and administrative bodies, both constructed according to those principles that ensue from the modern sense of right. It will be built up on those impulses in human consciousness, which go to-day by the name of "democratic." The legislative and administrative bodies in the economic domain will arise out of the forces of economic life. Such transactions as are necessary between the executive heads of the legislative and administrative bodies of "rights" and economics respectively, will be carried on pretty much as between the governments of sovereign states to-day. This co-ordination of the two systems will make it possible for developments in the one body to exert the needful influence on the other. This influence of the two spheres on one another is prevented, when one of them tries to develope within itself the element that should come to it from the other.

The economic life, then, is dependent on the one hand on those relations in "right," which the State establishes between the persons and groups of persons engaged in economic work, just as, on the other hand, it is subject to the conditions of the nature-basis (climate, local features, presence of mineral wealth, etc.). The bounds are thus marked out on either side for the proper and possible activities of economic life. Just as nature creates predetermining conditions, which lie outside the economic sphere, and must be accepted by the man at work in it as the given premises on which all his economic work must be based,--so everything in the economic sphere that establishes a "relation in right" between man and man, must, in a healthy social organism, be regulated by the "rights-State," which, like the nature-basis, goes on alongside and independently of the economic life. In the present social organism,--as developed in the course of mankind's historic evolution up till now,--economic life occupies an unduly large place, and sets the peculiar stamp that it has acquired from the machine-age and modern capitalism upon the whole social movement. It has come to include more than it should include in any healthy society. In the present day, trafficking to and fro within the economic circuit, where only commodities should traffic, we find human labour-power, and human rights besides. At the present day, within the body economic, one can truck not only commodities for commodities, but commodities for human labour,--and for human rights as well, and all by the very same economic process. (By "commodity" I mean everything which through human activity has acquired the form in which it is finally brought by man to its place of destination for consumption. Economists may perhaps find this definition objectionable or inadequate; but it may be serviceable towards an understanding of what properly belongs to economic life. [3])

When anyone acquires a plot of land by purchase, one must regard it as an exchange of the land for commodities for which the purchase money stands proxy. The plot of land however does not act as a commodity in economic life. It holds its position in the body social through the "right" the owner has to use it. There is an essential difference between this right of use, and the relation of a producer to the commodity he produces. From the very nature of the producer's relation to his product, it cannot possibly enter into the totally different kind of man-to-man relation created by the fact that someone has been granted the sole right to use a certain piece of land. Other men are obliged to live on this land, or the owner sets them to work on it for their living; and thus he brings them into a State of dependence upon himself. The fact of mutually exchanging genuine commodities, which one produces or consumes, does not establish a dependence that affects the man-to-man relation in the same kind of way.

To an unprejudiced mind it is clear, that a fact of actual life, such as this, must, in a healthy society, find due expression in its social institutions. So long as there is simply an interchange of commodities for commodities in economic life, the value of these commodities is determined independently of the relations-of-right existing between individuals or groups. Directly commodities are interchanged for rights, the "rights relation" is itself affected. It is not a question of the exchange in itself; such an exchange is the inevitable life-element of the modern social organism, resting as it does on division of labour. The point is, that through this interchange of rights and commodities, "right" itself is turned into a commodity, when the source of "right" lies within the economic life. The only way of preventing this, is by having two sets of institutions in the body social,--one, whose sole and only object it is to conduct commodities in the most expedient manner along its circuit, the other regulating those human rights involved in commodity-exchange which arise between the individuals engaged in producing, trading and consuming. Such rights are not distinct in their nature from any other rights that necessarily exist in all relations between persons, quite independent of commodity-exchange. If I injure or benefit my fellow-man by the sale of a commodity, it falls within the same social category as an injury or benefit due to some action or negligence not directly expressed in an exchange of commodities.

In the organisation of economic life, that familiarity with business, which comes from practical experience and specialist training, will give the point of view needed by the person at the head of affairs. In the "rights" organisation, the laws and administration will give effect to the general sense of right in the dealings of persons and groups with one another. The economic organisation will assist the formation of Associations amongst people who from their calling, or as consumers, have the same interests or similar requirements. And this network of Associations, working together, will build up the whole fabric of industrial economy, The economic organisation will grow up on an associative basis, and out of the links between the Associations. The work of the Associations will be purely economic in character, and be carried on on a basis of "rights" provided by the rights-organisation. These Associations, being able to make their economic interests recognised in the representative and administrative bodies of the economic organisation, will not feel any need to force themselves into the legislative or executive government of the "rights-State" (as, for instance, a Landowners' League, or Manufacturers' Party, or a Socialist party representing an industrial programme), in order to effect there what they have no power to achieve within the limits of the economic life. If the "rights-State" again takes no part whatever in any branch of industrial economy, then the institutions it establishes will be such only as spring from the sense of right amongst its members. Although the persons who sit on the representative body of the rights-State may, and of course will, be the same as are taking an active part in economic life, yet, owing to the division of function, economic life will not be able to exert such an influence on the "rights life," that the health of the whole body social is undermined,--as it can be, when the state itself organises branches of economic life, with representatives of the economic world as state-legislators, making laws to suit economic interests.

A typical example of the fusion of the economic life with the rights-life was afforded by Austria. According to the constitution adopted by Austria in the eighteen-sixties, the representatives of the imperial assembly, the "Reichsrat," of that compound territory, were elected from the communities representing the four branches of economic life:--the landed proprietors,--the chambers of commerce,--the towns, markets and industrial centres,--and the rural areas. Obviously, in this composition of the representative State-assembly, the first and only idea was, that of playing off the economic interests against one another, in the belief that a system of political rights must be the outcome. No doubt the disruptive forces of her divers nationalities contributed largely to Austria's downfall. But it may be taken as no less certain, that if an opportunity had been given for developing a system of "rights," working alongside and outside of the economic one, it would, from the common sense of right, have evolved a form of society in which the different nationalities could have lived together in unity.

A person engaged in public life to-day usually turns his attention to things in it that are only of secondary consideration. This is because his habits of thought lead him to regard the body social as uniform in structure. As a uniform structure, there is no form of suffrage he can devise that will fit it; for the economic interest and the impulses of human rights will come into mutual conflict upon the representative body, however it may be elected; and the conflict between them will affect social life in a way that must result in severe shocks to the whole organism of society. The first and indispensable object to be worked for in public life to-day must be the radical separation of economic life from the "rights" organisation. And as the separation becomes gradually established, and people grow into it, the two organisations will each in the process discover its own most appropriate method of selecting its legislators and administrature. Amongst all that at the present moment is clamouring for settlement, forms of suffrage, although they bear on fundamental issues, are nevertheless of secondary consideration.

Where the old conditions still exist, these can be taken as the basis from which to work towards the new separation of function. Where the old order has already melted away, or is in process of dissolution, there individuals and little groups of people must find the initiative to start reconstructing along the new lines of growth. To try in 24 hours to effect a transformation in public life, is recognised by thoughtful socialists themselves as midsummer madness. They look to gradual opportune changes to bring about what they regard as social welfare. The light of facts, however,--must make it plain to any impartial observer, that a reasoning will and purpose are needed to make a new social order, and are imperatively demanded by the forces at work in mankind's historic evolution.

These remarks will be regarded as "unpractical" by someone who regards nothing as practicable outside the narrow horizon of his customary life. Unless he can see things differently, any influence he may retain in any sphere of life will not tend to heal the disease in the body social, but only to make it worse. It was people of his way of thinking who helped to bring about the present state of affairs. There must be a reversal of the movement which has set in in leading circles, and which has already brought various departments of economic life (e.g., the postal and railway services, etc.), within the workings of the State. Its opposite must begin: a movement towards the elimination of all economic activity from the domain of politics and State organisation. Thinkers, whose whole will and purpose, as they believe, is directed to the welfare of society, take this movement towards State control, started by the hitherto governing circles, and push it to its logical extreme. They propose to socialise all the materials of economic life, in so far as they are means of production. A healthy course of development, however, will give economic life its independence, and will give the political State a system of "right" through which it can bring its influence to bear on the body economic,--so that the individual shall not feel that his function within the body social gives the lie to his sense of right.

When one considers the work that a man does for the body social by means of his physical labour-power, it is plain that the above reflections are grounded in the actual life of men. The position which labour has come to occupy in the social order under the capitalistic form of economy, is such, that is purchased by the employer from the employed as a commodity. An exchange is effected between money (as representing commodities) and labour. But in reality no such exchange can take place; it only appears to do so. [4] What really happens is, that the employer receives in return from the worker commodities that cannot exist, unless the worker devotes his labour-power to creating them. The worker receives one part, the employer the other part of the commodity so created. The production of the commodity is the result of a co-operation between employer and employed. The product of their joint action is that which first passes into the circuit of economic life. For the product to come into existence, there must be a "relation in right" between worker and "enterpriser"; but the capitalist type of economy is able to convert this "rights" relation into one determined by the employer's superiority in economic power over the employed. In a healthy social order, it will be obvious that labour cannot be paid for, that one cannot set an economic value upon it comparable to the value of a commodity. The commodity produced by this labour first acquires an economic value by comparison with other commodities. The kind of work a man must do for the maintenance of the body social, how he does it, and the amount, must be settled according to his abilities and the conditions of a decent human existence. And this is only possible when such questions are settled by the political state, quite independently of the provisions and regulations made in the economic life.

This settlement of labour conditions outside economics, pre-establishes a basis of value for commodities comparable to the basis already established by the conditions of nature. The value of one commodity, as measured by another, is increased by the fact that its raw material is more difficult to procure; and, similarly, the value of a commodity must be made dependent on the kind and amount of labour which the "rights" system allows to be expended on its production. [5]

Thus economic life has its conditions fixed on two sides. On one, there is the "nature-basis," which man must take as he finds it; on the other, will be the "rights-basis" which has to be created on the free and independent ground of the political State,--detached from economic life, and out of the common sense of right.

It is obvious, that in a social organism conducted in this way the standard of economic well-being will rise and fall with the amount of labour which the common sense of right expends upon it. This however must be so in a healthy society. Only the subordination of the general economic prosperity to the common sense of right can prevent man from being so used up and consumed by economic life that his existence no longer seems to him worthy of his humanity. And it is this sense of an existence unworthy of human beings that is, in reality, at the bottom of the convulsions in the body social.

Should the general standard of economic well-being be too greatly lowered on the "rights" side, there is a way of preventing this, just as there is a way of improving the nature-basis. One can employ technical means to make a less productive soil more productive; and, if prosperity declines over much, the mode and amount of work can be changed. Only, such changes should not be a direct consequence of processes in the economic life; they must be the outcome of insight, arrived at on the free ground of "rights," independent of economic life.