The Complex Vision

by John Cowper Powys

The astounding achievements of modern science have brought to light two things. They have brought to light the fact that no human or social unit short of the international unit of the whole race can adequately deal with the resources of the planet. And they have brought to light the fact that this inevitable internationalizing of economic production must be accompanied by a co-operative internationalizing of economic distribution, if murderous chaotic conflict is to be avoided.

The real values of sufficient food, clothing, shelter, leisure, and solitude can be secured for every human being inhabiting this planet, under a far from perfect organization of world-production and world-distribution. The astounding achievements of modern science have made this possible. It only requires a reasonable and not by any means an ideal co-operation to make it actual.

The achievements of modern science, especially in the sphere of industrial machinery, have made it possible for every human being to have sufficient food, clothing, shelter, leisure and solitude. Man, in this sense, has already conquered Nature; and has secured for his progeny however indefinitely increased, and for the frail and incompetent ones of his race, however indefinitely increased, a more than sufficient supply of these primal necessities.

The extraordinary power of international co-operation has been recently displayed during the years of the war in the production of engines of destruction. Far less cooperation applied to the problems of production could secure for an indefinitely multiplied population, including all derelicts and all incompetents, such primal necessities of life as normal persons demand. The resources of this planet, as long as scientific distribution follows close upon scientific production, are sufficient to maintain in food, in shelter, in clothing, in leisure, in reasonable comfort, any human progeny.

What then is the principal cause why, as things are now, such lamentable poverty and such huge fear of lamentable poverty dominate the human situation? The cause is not far to seek. It lies in the very root and ground of our existing commercial and industrial system. It lies in the fact that economic production by reason of the illusive value of private enterprise, is directed not towards the satisfaction of such universal and primary necessities as food, shelter, clothing, leisure and reasonable comfort, but towards the creation of unnecessary luxury and artificial frippery, towards the piling up, by means of advertisement, monopoly, exploitation and every kind of chicanery of unproductive accumulation of private property.

Our present commercial and industrial system is based upon what is called "free competition." In other words it is based upon the right of private individuals to make use of the resources of nature and the energy of labour to produce unnecessary wealth, wealth which does little or nothing to increase the food, shelter, clothing, leisure and comfort of the masses of mankind, wealth which is artificially maintained by artificial values and by the fantastic process of advertisement.

In order to make clear and irrefutable the statement that the illusive value of private property is, like "the illusion of dead matter," a thing conceived, projected and maintained by the aboriginal power of evil, it is necessary to prove two things. It is necessary to prove in the first place that the idea of private property is neither beautiful nor noble nor real. And it is necessary to prove in the second place that the defence of the idea of private property arouses the most evil and most malignant passions which it is possible for the human soul to feel.

That private property is neither beautiful nor noble can be deduced from the fact that in proportion as human souls become attuned to finer, more distinguished, and more intellectual levels they become more and more indifferent to the "sensation of ownership." That private property is an unreal thing can be deduced from the fact that no human being can actually "possess," in a definite, positive, and exhaustive manner, more than he can eat or drink or wear or otherwise personally enjoy.

His "sensation of ownership," over lands, houses, gardens, pictures, statues, books, animals and human beings, is really and actually restricted to the immediate and direct enjoyment which he is able in person to derive from such things. Beyond this immediate and personal enjoyment the extension of his "sensation of ownership" can do no more than increase his general sense of conventional power and importance. His real "possession" of his land is actually restricted to his capacity for appreciating its beauty. His real "possession" of his books is actually restricted to his personal capacity for entering into the living secrets of these things. Without such capacity, though he may call himself the "possessor" or "owner," he is really no better than an official "care-taker," whose province it is to preserve certain objects for other people to enjoy, or, shall we say, for the permanent prevention of any people ever enjoying them. And just as the "sensation of ownership" or "the idea of private property" is unreal and illusive with regard to land, houses, pictures, books, and the like so it is unreal and illusive with regard to human beings. No one, however maliciously he may hug to himself his possessive instinct, can ever actually and truly "possess" another living person.

One's wife, one's paramour, one's child, one's slave, are only apparently and by a conventional illusion of language one's real and actual "possession." That this is the case can be proved by the fact that any of these "human possessions" has only to commit suicide, to escape for ever from such bondage.