The Road To Freedom,
And What Lies Beyond
CHAPTER 4
Josiah and Ethel Wedgwood
[Published in London by C.W. Daniel, Ltd., 1913]
THE STRENGTHENING OF GOVERNMENT
… Governments use Reforms to
increase their own Power.
… Indeed it is a flaw, inherent not
in any one party but in all governments, as well as in masters,
landlords, parents and other authorities, that they glorify their
task, and suppose that to govern well and be governed well is the goal
of human society. Characteristics and tendencies are approved or
condemned as they are judged convenient or inconvenient to the
existing order. To be a "danger to society" is reckoned on a
level with the basest moral depravity. To breed consumptive children;
to try to weaken the discipline of the army; to publicly lecture on
the turpitude of the officially recognised deity -- those who commit
these offences -- though they may do so on high moral grounds -- are
treated in fact if not by name as criminals. Society - not the ideal
human society -- but society as it exists now, is as gross a fetish as
any idol of any older superstition. The amazing thing is that those
very people who will support any injustice to individuals in the name
of this new god, are loudest in denouncing the religious intolerance
of outworn dogmas.
… There are many ways of baffling
inconvenient truths, and one of the most effectual is to adopt and
redirect any movement which threatens disturbance -- to turn the
enemies' guns upon themselves. It is repeatedly said in praise of the
British political genius, that it forestalls revolution by gradual and
moderate reforms. This does not mean that the social state itself
changes: but that it assimilates the hostile element, and by continual
opportunism makes the triumph of a general principle impossible.
Reforms adopted by a government are either adopted so late as to have
lost their use and meaning, or in such a form that they become a
powerful agent in strengthening the governing classes against further
encroachment. Le bien est Vennemi du mieux. To take a familiar
instance: The Reform Bill of 1832 was adopted by the House of Commons
and forced through the House of Lords amidst popular enthusiasm, at a
time when a small oligarchy held political power to the exclusion of
both the middle and the working classes. It was the union of the
intelligent manufacturer with the ignorant " hand " which
made the Reform movement a danger to the governing classes. The Reform
Bill gave power to the middle class by a limited property franchise,
and the middle class immediately became divorced from the worker and a
staunch bulwark of government in all its legislation for and against
the poor.
… The same thing happened with the
Protestant Reformation. The movement, which was in essence
revolutionary and individualist, was turned to political account by
the rulers of the day; and, safe under the protection of the Elector
of Saxony, the same Luther, who a few years before had defied Pope and
Emperor, denounces the revolt of the oppressed peasants. Kings and
rulers adopted the independent religion, and found in their State
Protestant Church a firmer pillar of their own supremacy than a
Catholic Pope had ever afforded them.
… Amongst all the popular movements
and proposals of social reform which disturb the slumber of democratic
countries, it happens that those selected by their governments are
always those that tend to make the population more manageable, amiable
and easy to reckon with. On reaching that point the reform ceases to
be "dangerous," and is classed as "progressive."
… The Trades Unions, for instance,
began life as isolated combinations of men really suffering oppression
and want, and banded to fight the powers that keep the keys of work
and idleness. They had great wrongs to redress, and for a while fought
against odds, as purely voluntary groups leading a precarious life ;
and thus long they were hampered by legislation and abused as
anti-economic. Now, however, that they have become part of the
industrial mechanism and the recognised middlemen of the labour mart,
and have a financial stake in the country, this view has changed. Now
that they have educated leaders -- leaders, therefore, in touch with
the middle and upper classes; -- and now that the individual Trades
Union member is so thoroughly subjected to the organisation, by means
of his sick and out-of-work benefit payments, that he can be relied on
implicitly to obey orders; -- now, Trades Unions meet with approval
from the most enlightened economists and the most commercial elements.
Even if one Trades Union is for a time out of favour owing to an
inconvenient strike, some local cause is blamed, usually the
unmanageableness of the rank and file, but not the institution. In
fact, the Trades Unions are now generally recognised as most valuable
bodies and a credit to the working men of the country, not because
they voice grievances and keep up wages, but because they make it
possible to handle large bodies of men securely, without calling in
the military or even the police. In reality, they act as breakers-in
for the Lib.- Con.-Lab. Governments. And if their power is menaced (as
by the 1911 Insurance Act, which turns them into Government collecting
agents), it is only to transfer the workmen into still stronger
keeping - that of the State - which, by feeding, lodging, nursing,
doctoring, educating, and drilling them, acquires irresistible control
of them, soul and body, from the cradle to the grave.
… Perhaps it is desirable here
again to distinguish between this established kind of Trade Unionism
and the form called Syndicalism, which, because it professes to attain
the very same objects without using the Government machinery, is
anathema, not only to the propertied classes but most of all to the
official Labour Party leaders. Here, too, by facilitating the
admission of members of the Labour Party to seats in the legislature,
well-to-do-society has turned their organisation into an additional
bulwark for its own protection.
… The People have no Choice.
… It may be said that this State
control is enacted by "the will of the people." But "the
people" -- a political title for the larger half of those
consulted -- " the people " have about as much choice
offered them as the Mahdi's prisoners between the Koran and
decapitation, since they see absolutely no prospect of livelihood
except what is offered them by capitalist masters on one hand, or by
bureaucrat masters on the other. For, being absolutely debarred from
the land, the only source of independent existence, even if one of
them dreamed of freedom he could not achieve it.
… The Evolution of Slavery.
… Just as the serfdom and chattel
slavery of early ages gave place to industrial slavery, so there is
every sign now of reversion to the tightest bonds of chattel slavery,
not indeed with various individuals as masters, but in their stead, as
sole master and owner, a bureaucracy acting in the name of a
democratic majority.
… In passing from serfdom to
industrialism, the serf gained freedom of domicile, of marriage, of
style of work, but, above all, freedom to choose between his masters
and to bargain with them. In exchange, he lost some amount of
protection, of security, and, what was of most importance, his last,
slight, customary hold upon the land. When the serf became a wage
worker, his master was consummated absolute lord of the soil; and in
gaining his personal freedom, the worker lost finally his hopes of
real economic freedom. But even such partial increase of independence
as he had gained in the choice of masters and the possibility of
bargaining was lost when the era of machine-and -factory labour set
in. Every opportunity for employment in any particular trade then
converged into two or three plexi, and into the hands of a few persons
representing all the scattered individual employers of that trade
throughout the country. It was the first step in collective
bargaining, Instead of dealing with small depots or individual users
of boots and teapots, the cobbler or pot -thrower had to deal with a
few firms representing all the possibilities of bootmaking or
chinacasting. To meet the concentration of employers, the Trades
Unions developed, amalgamating the working strength of the
proletariat, but at the same time limiting further such individual
freedom as remained. The process of collective bargaining was now
complete, and the individual worker had become a unit in the
proletarian army.
… The impossibility of the employer
carrying on his trade without hands; the impossibility of the hands
existing if debarred from the raw material of their work ; the ruin to
the outside public if either party cut off the supply, not only of
food, etc., but of the materials for other work -- these things have
always made industrial disputes inconvenient and alarming. But it is
only recently that the organisations of employers and employed have
been so perfected as to make a deadlock actually possible. Legislators
and business men, scared at the glimpse of anarchy, are beginning to
feel the need of a more complete control of the whole machinery of
industry ; while philanthropists realise fully the failure of the
present system to give satisfaction, or even a livelihood, to the mass
of the population. Both agree that what is wanted is more elaborate
organisation and more expert control. And so we have every device for
making the worker better equipped and more comfortable, hand in hand
with ever more intimate regulations as to his labour and personal
life.
… Comparison of Mediaeval and
Modern Chattel Slavery.
… This revived form of chattel
slavery bears a curiously close analogy, even in details, to the old.
It restores security (without, however, restoring any of the old
rights to the soil), and limits such industrial independence as may
still exist in theory if not in fact. i? 1. The right of bargaining,
the chief superiority of the industrial over the chattel serf, is
being again subjected to restrictions. His wages and hours are being
fixed, with penalties, by boards of arbitration empowered and
authorised by his overlord, the Government. Similar attempts to
enforce contracts and rates of pay were made in the fourteenth
century, after the Black Death, when a decimated proletariat, relieved
from intense competition, became impudent. It is true that at that
date it was the maximum, and is now the minimum that is legally fixed
; but there is not so great a difference between the two as at first
sight appears, and the principle is the same. The regulation of wages
was made then, as it is likely to be made now, with the object of
keeping the agricultural labourer on his lord's fields and of keeping
the industrial workers at work. It is no injustice to social
philanthropists to say that the governing classes, as a whole, would
have heard little and thought little about the inadequate remuneration
of labour if landlords and farmers had not suffered from the migration
of the labourer to towns, and if the organised workers had not
threatened to keep trade in perpetual insecurity from fear of strikes.
The minimum wage, if it is introduced by any party of the legislature,
will be passed with the tacitly understood motive of making the horse
quiet in harness. The mediaeval attempt to fix a maximum wage failed,
because it was not even ostensibly in the labourer's interests; and it
was in that age impossible to prevent individual workers bargaining
with individual employers. The modern attempt to fix a minimum wage
should succeed better, since it has apparent benevolence to recommend
it, is desired by many of the workers themselves who are hopeless of
obtaining real justice, and will have, to enforce it, all our good
organisations, our admirable police and our more perfect control of
every department of life. Economically, or with a view to social
liberty, it is likely to be as complete a fiasco as its predecessor.
… 2. The second point of comparison
is the treatment of the unattached or inefficient worker.
… In the first period of chattel
slavery, the landless and masterless were outlawed or thrown into
prison; and all along the workhouse and gaol have stood open for
industrial failures and played an important part in social progress.
Now, with more enlightenment, we would place the workless worker into
labour colonies, where his occupation will be selected for him and
efficient training compulsorily given. The Labour Bureaus, though
ostensibly only a servants' registry, have become, under the
Unemployment Insurance Act, a step in the same direction.
… Everywhere capacity to "compete
on equal terms" is being made a test of the right to free
movement. Of those who do not or cannot compete -- the weak to the
public hospital -- the feeble to the institution -- the rebellious to
the prison or the Borstal colony. Charity itself is used as a lever of
compulsion, and the district visitor and relieving officer enter the
homes of the stricken, with a dole in one hand and a "case"
card in the other. Their mission is not to relieve distress, but to
number the people.
… 3. It is true that the serf may
now marry without his lord's consent -- if he can afford to; but the
Eugenic societies are doing their best to remove this privilege; and
if their counsels prevail, the worker will soon not be able to take a
wife without medical testimony that neither of them harbours any
noxious bacillus, or possesses qualities " undesirable for the
race," or is the other's first cousin, or anything that the
latest science pronounces contrary to the interests of society.
… One can imagine the romances of
the future, in which the dreaded Board plays the role of the Montague
and Capulet relations ; and in which the two lovers are separated by
the Notification of Diseases Schedule in place of the Church's
mysterious Table of Affinities. No doubt, however, for the rich there
will always be "dispensation" forthcoming, as in the case of
the Vaccination law.
… As regards the poor, indeed, our
provision for other people's health is already almost perfect. Madame
de Sevigne, hearing of small-pox in a cottage on the family estate,
urges her daughter to send the sick child and its family to some place
farther from the seigneurial residence. At first reading, one is
struck by this as a crude illustration of what made the French
nobility so unpopular in 1789. In reality, it compares favourably with
a law which takes a sick child away from its mother, because she is
too poor to spare a room for isolation and get a substitute for
herself in the housework.
… 4. In habitat the serf is not yet
quite so restricted as he was ; but under the excellent new schemes of
town-planning and the zeal of some town councils in erecting barracks,
he will probably soon be limited to certain sorts of dwellings in
certain areas -- Jewries not of religion but of class.
… Such measures may make the
industrial worker a healthier animal and a more efficient tool, but
they do not touch the heart of his trouble; they only add to the loss
of his economic freedom the loss of his personal freedom as well.
… On the other hand, without such
protective measures, industrial slavery would become utterly
unendurable.
CONTENTS
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