Human Work

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

That one man must give his life to the art of weaving did not so narrow his mental area, or so cut him off from appreciation of other branches of human work, as this later development where a man wears out two sets of oak planks in one spot, standing still all his life, making nails! It seems “a far cry” from the fractional construction of nails to the social consciousness, and yet, in the true order of industrial development, it brings it nearer. The more extreme the specialisation the more extreme the interdependence, and that universal interdependence is the condition which calls for, and which develops, social consciousness.

In the true order—but that order has been grievously interfered with by our own mistakes. Acting under the ego concept, and the system of competition which rests upon it, the increasing specialisation which is so normal a condition of social growth has been made to carry increasing evil consequences to the specialised worker. A just and rational position on the part of Society! As fast as its members specialise in compliance with the demands of social benefit, so fast does the benefited society stunt and degrade its benefactors!

That there has been improvement in the rank and file of society is not denied, but it is due to our partial and grudging distribution of the social good along normal lines of public provision, such as free schools and libraries, and not to our idiotic ideas of individual work and pay.

Where there is no such public provision our economic concepts act to crush and degrade the worker. That increasing specialisation with its mechanical adjuncts, which should make it possible for a man to discharge his social obligations in an hour and then be free to contribute to progress by larger growth, we have taken advantage of to compel an amount and grade of labour alike ruinous to the individual in his immediate sacrifice and to the society composed of such sacrificed individuals. Men dying of thirst have been known to bite madly into their own flesh and suck the blood, but for a prosperous, growing society, rich, powerful, safe, intelligent, to make a steady diet of its own meat, is unreasonable.

“The social sacrifice” is a very real and noble thing. It sometimes requires the lives of some of its members to preserve the life of the whole body. This sacrifice is always cheerfully made in war. It also requires the surrender of individual freedom of action to that complex interaction and unswerving duty which makes up the social service. But this sacrifice is more than compensated by the advantages given the individual in the life of the whole. A member of a big, complex society has not only a far better and happier personal life than his freely individual savage ancestor, but he has also share in the large, glorious, common life of that society.

That is, he should have these things. As it is—owing to our antediluvian errors—he has to make the sacrifice, and in return he is reduced to an individual life far less gratifying than that of a healthy savage, yet knows no more of the splendid social consciousness belonging to his position than if he were that savage still.

There is one feature in social specialisation so prominent and so important as to call for more detailed explanation. This is the relation of what we call “unskilled labour” to social evolution. Our ideas of justice in payment, of the necessary “cheapness” of certain low grades of work, our patient tenderness or impatient contempt for this immense class of humanity, rest on the assumption that human beings are widely unequal in ability; that most of them are of this low and cheap order, and that social progress lies in the advance of superior individuals, assisted in a humble way by the inferior.

For these we must “furnish employment” of a simple character suited to their powers, and pay them with a modesty equal to their other limitations. Because there are so many of them, their competition for the humble tasks allotted keeps the price of unskilled labour very low indeed. Through organisation they have forced the price up a little, but most of us consider this as unjustifiable in strict economic law.

If it is shown that low wages for low labour keeps that labour always low, and indeed makes it lower; that out of the impoverished environment we inevitably breed defectives and degenerates, diseases and crimes; and that farther, because a hard and unfavourable environment promotes fecundity, therefore this low rate of wages tends to increase the birth rate of the lowest people, thus making a vicious circle of social stagnation and deterioration—if these things are proved to us, we say it cannot be helped—it is a condition of human nature. These inferior people are the bulk of humanity; they cannot do high-grade labour; it would not be fair to pay the plentiful “cheap labour” as much as the scarce and therefore more expensive kind, so there you are! As a way of escape from this position “the brotherhood of man” tries to uplift the lowly, but the majority do not accept this brotherhood theory. Or they say, “Brother or not, these are such hopelessly inferior brothers that we will not consent to any levelling which would reduce us to their grade, and they cannot be raised to ours.”

Now here is the true position. “Unskilled labour” is a product of social evolution. Among savages there is no unskilled labour. Each man must be skilled in several lines to keep himself alive. In his pre-social condition of individualism, his life depending immediately upon his own exertions, he necessarily develops skill in his essential activities. No heavy-eyed, slow-witted, hod-carrying grade of efficiency could maintain itself in a status of individual savagery. The “man with the hoe” comes later—much later. He is produced, developed, maintained, by a highly differentiated society. The nobleman evolves the serf—they are parts of one fighting organisation. The mill-owner and his “hands” are part of one working organisation.