And the work of the future, the labour of thousands on a great enterprise, will be accomplished in the spirit of adventure and comradeship, like an Arctic expedition, let us say, and the distribution of rewards will be conducted in the same spirit as the prize-giving at a sports meeting.
The spirit of adventure is a most valuable incentive to work, an incentive that is much neglected at present. It is part of the workman’s grievance against capital that the capitalist has the adventurous part of the undertaking.
The need for adventure in everyday life is proved by the enormous prevalence of betting on horses, which is about the most stupid way of adventuring money that one can conceive. The prodigies performed under some piece-work agreements show that it is not the quantity of work that is felt as a burden, but the consciousness of being driven by a will other than one’s own. Many schemes of profit-sharing also introduce an element of chance which is most welcome to the worker, though logically it should be under a proviso of loss-sharing in the same proportion.
A profit-and-loss-sharing understanding between employers and workers would make every worker a capitalist. Indeed, as soon as the workers (or the State, it matters not which) are sufficiently organized to guard workers from undeserved destitution, it may be quite feasible to organize public undertakings without wages of any kind. Each worker would contribute “capital” in the form of a certain amount of work. In case of a total loss on the undertaking, he would receive no reward or wages whatever, any more than the capitalist who engages in a profitless scheme. If the undertaking succeeded, he would have a permanent interest in the revenue from it, in proportion to the work contributed. Since it is easier to assess the value of manual piece-work than mental work, it might well happen that, though no wages were paid, salaries would be paid to organizers, architects, overseers, and the like, who would thus be the only “proletarians” in the concern!
Government.—“The first duty of a Government is to govern.” This platitude sounds as if there were some hidden pearl of meaning behind it. But on etymological analysis we find that the duty of Government is to work the rudder of the ship of State. It is to give a general direction to the activities of its citizens. The same or a similar word is used in all countries based upon Roman law and citizenship. The German equivalent, Regierung, is different. It means reigning or doing the business of royalty, but as the origin of the word “Rex” is the same as that of the main syllable of the words “Rector” and “Director,” it comes to the same thing, a “directing” action.
Will this directing or controlling action ever become superfluous?
Its chief function is at present to determine the policy of a large aggregate of human beings. In democratic countries this determination is settled by a majority vote, from which there is no legal appeal, though passive resistance or the threat of rebellion are weapons which a minority can sometimes use with effect. A majority vote would be practically certain to be wrong on most questions of the day, but fortunately such a vote has no effect unless it is put into action by a body of expert politicians comprising the Ministry, and these again are largely guided by experts in the particular matter with which the vote in question is concerned. Laws are not made by Parliament. They are born in Government offices under expert advice. The Cabinet, on the advice of its experts, decides to bring in a Bill which is likely to be of some benefit, will probably be passed by Parliament, and will encounter no serious resistance in the country. Our Government is thus really a Government by Experts, but is cleverly disguised in such a manner as to appear “broadbased upon the People’s Will.” A similar camouflage might very properly be adopted in the management of factories and industrial enterprises. But the State is older than the Factory, and has learnt more wisdom.
The other primary function of government is the maintenance of public order—in other words, the enforcement of the laws it has enacted. Among the Medes and Persians, whose laws were never altered, this was the main function of government. And in a non-progressive world the task of keeping everyone “in his place” and preventing him from encroaching on his neighbours might well fill the whole sphere of government. The Anarchist ideal of the abolition of all government is only possible if we can abolish the natural tendency of all living things to expand and extend their sphere of action; or if we can endow its neighbours with sufficient reserves of energy to be able to oppose any undue expansion. If a motorist knocks down a pedestrian, we discourage that undue extension of his sphere by a fine or imprisonment. If we could endow every pedestrian with the physical power of stopping a car, say, by raising his hand; or if, alternatively, we could make him invulnerable, indestructible, and untraversable, there would be no need for prosecutions, and Anarchism would, in that particular case, become a possible system.
The idea of a government being something superior to ordinary humanity is somewhat ludicrous. In actual practice, government is the servant of the public, and not its master. There are countless cases of the process of law being used for private ends. The rule of conduct among some powerful individuals and corporations is to “go on until you are stopped,” in other words, to do what you like until somebody objects, or until you are stopped by the law. The law is thus used as a sort of indicator or “automatic cut-out” much as an electrical engineer would use a safety-fuse. The main difference is that the “blowing” of some particular fuses leads to explosions and permanent damage, as when a crime is committed.
The business of government is hard and sometimes very exacting work. One can imagine some misdemeanant of the future being condemned to carry on the government, or some important function of it, for so many months, as the most exacting form of hard labour.