The societies of the past have done this in their own way; they have had the state and the church, heroes, dignitaries, traditions and symbols, a visible whole which engaged the devotion of men and served as the spring of ideal values. Montesquieu, with his eyes on France, wrote that honor was the principle of monarchy, which “sets all the parts of the body politic in motion,” the fount of honor being the king, and its awards depending, ideally, on public service, as that was understood at the time. We must do it in a new way, our own democratic way; but it must be done. There must be the ideals, the symbols, the devotion, the detailed and cogent interpretation for every phase of life.
It is not hard to find going on about us examples of the way in which an onward movement, expressing itself in any of the social institutions, may pass thence into the pecuniary system. Consider, for instance, the movement for vocational selection and specialized education in the schools. It is evident that the spirit of our democracy is bent on developing competent leadership and technical efficiency in all phases of its higher life. As this idea becomes organized it creates a demand for teachers and specialists of every sort which the growth of society is seen to require, and prices are set upon their services high enough to insure the supply. If the public mind sees the need of forestry, a supply of trained foresters, sufficiently well paid, is presently at hand. These in turn, acting as leaders, stimulate and guide public opinion, and a growth of organization and of values takes place along the line of vital impulse.
Of the same character is the rise and effectuation of an art spirit, which we are witnessing. The public mind, somewhat weary of a monotonous commercialism, has begun to turn, vaguely but resolutely, toward æsthetic production and enjoyment. There are a hundred manifestations of this, but none more significant than the rise of art-handicraft teaching in the schools. No one can say how far this will go, but there is no apparent reason why it should stop short of restoring that union of life with art which our recent development has so generally destroyed. If so, the effect in creating higher types of commercial value, in commodities and in men, will be beyond estimate. The spirit of art makes men desire to surround themselves with objects upon which the craftsman has impressed a joyous personal feeling, precisely as the lover of literature needs to surround himself with books of which this is true. It is essentially a demand for personal expression, and implies a real, though perhaps indirect, understanding between the workman and the consumer. In so far, then, as it prevails it evokes a class of handicraftsmen whose work is individual and inspiriting, partly counteracting the deadening effect of wholesale and impersonal methods. Thus there will come to be a growing number of independent and well-paid men, many of them dealing directly with the consumer, engaged upon work as delightful as any that life affords.
Wholesale production will doubtless continue, because of its economy, but even as regards this we note that variety and personal interest in the work are coming to have a market value as they are seen to promote contentment and efficiency in the worker.
The whole matter of fashion, especially of fashion in dress, might well be discussed from this point of view. Although it has been the subject of futile satire and protest so long as to seem hopeless, it is not so unless we are prepared to admit that we are incapable of a real self-expression in this part of life. Competent leadership, along with the general growth of æsthetic culture and democratic sentiment, should make this possible.
It is plain, also, that in any plan of reform of values through demand the mind of women must have a great part. In so far as this mind seems at present to fluctuate between conventionalism and anarchy, the cause, perhaps, is that it lacks the guidance and discipline that might come from the better organization of women as a social group. The working of this should be analogous to that of the professional groups I have cited, and should have a like power to raise the quality of the pecuniary values which women control. The critical question here is, will women, under conditions of freedom, develop a group consciousness of their own, with high ideals of each function and power to discipline the less responsible of their sex. It is hard to see how modern civilization can dispense with something of this kind. We seem to have abandoned compulsory discipline, and self-discipline is much needed to take its place—or rather to do what the other could never have done: make women full participants in democratic progress.
As regards a better pecuniary valuation of men, the same principles hold, in general, as for other kinds of pecuniary progress. It calls for the development of service values, along with the social organization necessary to appreciate and define these and secure for them pecuniary recognition. No social manipulation can be trusted to make people pay high prices for poor service, nor will good service secure an adequate reward without social structure to back it. The natural process is one of the concomitant development, through a continuing group, of service values and pecuniary appreciation.
Certainly we need a scientific and thoroughgoing cultivation of personal productive power. This should include the study of potential capacity in children, vocational guidance, practical training, and social culture. We require also a practical eugenics, which shall diminish the propagation of degenerate types and perhaps apply more searching tests to immigrants. We need, in short, a comprehensive “scientific management” of mankind, to the end of better personal opportunity and social function in every possible line. But inseparable from this is the whole question of democratic social development through the state and other institutions, every phase of which should tend to improve the general position, and through that the market power, of the unprivileged masses of the people.
To put it otherwise, the institutional forces supporting market values vary not only in different occupation groups, but along lines of general class position, and in the case of those classes that are handicapped by an unfavorable economic situation the weakness of these forces offers an urgent problem, which the labor movement, in the largest sense, is an endeavor to solve.
I do not anticipate that the struggle of classes over pecuniary distribution will go to any great extremes. It seems more probable that facility of intercourse, democratic education, underlying community of interest, and the large human spirit that is growing upon us, will maintain a working solidarity. Common ideals of some sort will pervade the whole people; and they cannot be ideals dictated by any one class. They must be such as can be made acceptable to an intelligent democracy, and will rule the minds of rich and poor alike; no class will be able to shut them out. They will be violated, but only in the clandestine way that all accepted principles are violated. Whoever has wealth, whoever has power, I am inclined to think that the sway of the public mind will be such as to insure the use of these, in the main, for what is regarded as the common welfare.