Human Work

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

“A right” means an essential condition. Human rights are all social, conferred by social consent, and resting upon the social good. The right to individual liberty, the right to justice, any right of any time rests on the general acceptance of social benefit involved in those rights. We have seen long ago that the good of Society rested on the best human productivity; but because we believed that productivity to be conditioned upon subsequent reward, instead of previous supply, we defined our rights accordingly.

Our position was like this: Society needs our best product. Man will not produce, except to gratify his own wants. What he produces is his own, because it is essential to the gratification of his wants. Therefore, Society must guarantee to each man the product of his own labour.

The effect of the position is this: Conceiving ourselves to be independent units, conceiving our end to be the gratification of our wants, conceiving our product to be a personal possession, and only produced in order to gratify wants—we necessarily seek to limit the output of our work to the measure of our wants. The consuming capacity of the man is made the measure of his production, and under such a standard we see no way to increase production, except by increasing the consuming capacity, the wants. This is held by our existing economists to work well, but they overlook certain essential elements in the position.

The free production of the world is obviously not that of the persons who want the most or who get the most. No one can show that a man’s social value depends on his greediness. To want all things, to want them intensely, to want them continually, to want them to be of the best,—this does not add to a man’s industry, or intelligence, to his skill, ability, talent, or genius. The best and most work comes from those who have the most ability and inclination to work, though they may be, and often are, the most modest of consumers. But—and here is the neglected element in the case—if production is not free—if productive labour is under any compulsion, then truly those who want the most will, if they have the power, compel other men to work the most. That is, if you do not make things, but merely take them, it is obvious that the more you want the more you will take.

To recur to the status of slave labour. In this system productivity is under direct compulsion. It is proportioned to punishment. The owner of the slave labour, if he wanted things, took from the slaves the product of their labour, and the more he wanted the more he took. In this case the greediness of the owner is productive, his slaves produce more because he wants more. But if their labour were really free, his wants would not affect their productivity.

Again, in wage labour, we have the employer and the employee. What is an employer? He is one who “owns” what other men want. They cannot get what they want unless he gives it to them. Since these things which they want are the necessities of life, they must work for pay, they are not free.

The employer, if he wants things, takes from the employee the product of his labour; and, as before, the more he wants the more he takes. Since he must, in order to gratify his wants, keep these men alive and productive, he must return them something; but the action of his wants upon their labour tends to keep their share at a minimum. This we call the “iron law of wages.” We hold that it stands to reason that a man will give as little as he can to get what he wants. This is quite true, want does not promote productivity.

But these employees are not free. If they were independent of the employer, he could not make them work to gratify his wants. Personal desire does not add to personal power, neither does it add to other people’s power. Desire, want, hunger, may direct action; but it is not a productive force, it is a tendency to segregate and consume, not to produce and distribute.

Now see the effect of the position here laid down.

Consumption is but a means to production. Production is a natural function of Society—organic, interdependent, instinctive. Production is promoted by increasing social energy and social consciousness, besides the self-evident condition of maintenance.