Chapter One
The True Nature of the Social Question
Does not the catastrophe of the
World War demonstrate the deficiency of the thinking which for decades
was supposed to have understood the will of the proletariat? Does not the
true nature of the social movement stand revealed by the fact of this
catastrophe?
It is necessary to ask these
questions, for the demands of the proletariat, previously suppressed, are
surging to the surface now that the powers of suppression have been
partially destroyed. But to maintain the position which these powers took
in relation to the social urges of a large part of humanity is something
which can only be desired by someone totally ignorant of the
indestructibility of such impulses in human nature.
Many of the key people who were able
to influence the European powers which in 1914 were intent on rushing
headlong into the catastrophe of war were victims of a great illusion in
respect to these impulses. They actually believed that a military victory
for their side would still the impending social storm. They have since
had to admit that their own behavior gave the social urges the impetus
they were waiting for. Indeed, the present human catastrophe has revealed
itself to be the historical event through which these urges attained to
their full driving force.
During these last fateful years, the
leading persons and classes have had to condition their behavior to the
attitudes of the socialist circles, although if it had been possible to
ignore them, they would gladly have done so. The form events have since
taken is the result of these attitudes. Now that a decisive stage — in
preparation for decades — has been reached, a tragedy unfolds because
thinking has not kept pace with events. Many people who have been trained
to think in terms of developments in which they saw social ideals are now
helpless when confronted with the grave problems which the facts
present.
Some still believe that their ideas
concerning a restructuring of society will somehow be realized and prove
sufficiently efficacious to guide events in a positive direction. The
deluded opinion that the old scheme of things should be retained in spite
of the demands of a majority of mankind can be dismissed off-hand, and
attention should be shifted to those who are convinced of the necessity
for social renewal. In any case, we are obliged to admit that party
platforms drift around among us like so many mummified ideas which are
continuously refuted by the facts. These facts require decisions for
which party programs are unprepared. The political parties have evolved
along with events but have fallen behind in respect of their thinking
habits. It is perhaps not presumptuous to maintain that these conclusions
— which are contrary to what is generally believed — can be properly
arrived at through a correct appraisal of contemporary events. It is
possible to deduce from this that the times should be receptive to a
characterization of the social life of humanity which, in its
originality, is foreign to the thinking of most socially oriented
personages as well as to party platforms. It is quite possible that the
tragedy of the attempts to solve the social question is attributable to a
misunderstanding of the meaning of the proletarian struggle, even on the
part of those whose ideas have originated in that struggle. For people
are by no means always able to derive correct judgments from their own
desires.
It would therefore appear justified
to ask the following questions: What does the modern proletarian movement
really want? – and does this correspond to what is generally considered
to be its objective by the non-proletariat and the proletariat alike?
Does the true nature of the social question agree with what is commonly
thought about it, or is a completely different way of thinking necessary?
This question can hardly be answered objectively except by one who has
been in a practical position to understand the modern proletarian mind,
especially the minds of those members of the proletariat who have been
instrumental in determining the direction which the social movement has
taken.
Much has been said about the
development of modern technology and capitalism, the birth of a new
proletarian working class, and how its demands have arisen within the new
economic system. Much of what has been said is relevant, but that nothing
decisive has been touched upon is evident to anyone who has not been
hypnotized by the idea that external conditions determine the nature of
human life, and who is objectively aware of the impulses which originate
in the human soul. It is true that the demands of the proletariat have
arisen during the evolution of modern technology and capitalism, but
recognition of this fact says nothing about the purely human impulse
residing in these demands. As long as these impulses are not fully
understood, the true nature of the ‘social question’ will remain
inscrutable.
The significance of the following
expression is apparent to anyone who has become familiar with the
deep-seated, internal forces of the human will: the modern worker has
become class-conscious. He no longer instinctively follows the lead of
the other social classes; he considers himself to be a member of a
separate class and is determined to influence the relations between his
class and the others in a manner which will be advantageous to his own
interests. The psychological undercurrents related to the expression
‘class conscious,’ as used by the modern proletariat, provide an insight
into the mentality of a working class which is bound up with modern
technology and capitalism. It is important to recognize the profound
impression which scientific teachings about economics and its influence
on human destiny have made on the mind of the proletarian. Here a fact is
touched upon concerning which many people who can only
thinkabout the proletarian and notwith him have murky, if not downright dangerous
notions, considering the seriousness of contemporary events. The opinion
that the ‘uncultivated’ worker has been deceived by Marxism and the
proletarian writers who promulgate it, is not conducive to an
understanding of the historical situation. This opinion reveals a lack of
insight into an essential element of the social movement: that the
proletarian class consciousness has been cultivated by concepts which
derive from modern scientific developments. The sentiment expressed in
Ferdinand Lassalle’s [Ferdinand Lassalle. 1825-1864, founder of
the Social Democratic movement in Germany. The speech referred to here
was made before the Berlin criminal court ‘in defense against the charge
of having publicly incited the property-less classes to hate and contempt
of the property owners,’ on 16 January, 1863. Ferdinand Lassalle
Gesammelte Reden und Schriften. Berlin 1919/20.] speech ‘Science and the Worker’ continues to
dominate this consciousness. This may seem unimportant to certain
‘practical’ people. Nevertheless, a truly effective insight into the
modern labor movement requires that attention be focused on this subject.
What both the moderate and radical wings of the proletarian movement are
demanding reflects the economic science which has captivated their
imagination and not, as has been maintained, economic life itself somehow
transformed into a human impulse. This is clearly illustrated by the
popularized scientific character of proletarian literature; to deny it is
to shut one's eyes to the facts. A fundamental, determining
characteristic of the present social situation is that the modern
proletarian is able to define the content of his class consciousness in
scientifically oriented concepts. The working man at his machine may be
far removed from ‘science’ as such; nevertheless, he hears the
explanation of his situation from others whose knowledge is derived from
this science.
All the discussion about the new
economics, the machine age, capitalism, etc., may be most enlightening in
respect to the underlying causes of the proletarian movement. However, the
determining factor of the present social situation is not that the worker
has been harnessed to a machine within the capitalistic system, but that
certain thoughts, influenced by his dependent position within the
capitalistic world order, have developed in his class consciousness. It may
be that the present habits of thought inhibit recognition of the
implications of this fact and make it appear that to emphasize it
constitutes no more than a dialectic game of concepts. This must be
answered as follows: there is no prospect of a successful intervention in
modern society without comprehension of the essential elements involved.
Anyone who wishes to understand the proletarian movement must first of all
know how the proletarian thinks. For this movement – from its moderate
efforts at reform to its most excessive abuses – is not activated by
‘non-human forces’ or ‘economic impulses,’ but by people, by their ideas
and by their will.
The decisive ideas and forces of will
of the contemporary social movement are not contained in what technology
and capitalism have implanted in the proletarian consciousness. The
movement has turned to modern science for the source of its ideas, because
technology and capitalism were not able to provide the worker with the
human dignity his soul needed. This dignity was available to the medieval
artisan through his craft, to which he felt humanly related; a situation
which allowed him to consider life in society as worth living. He was able
to view what he was doing as the realization of his striving as a human
being. Under capitalism and technology, however, he had no recourse but
himself, his own inner being, in seeking the basis for an understanding of
what a human being is; for this basis is not contained in capitalism and
technology. Therefore, the proletarian consciousness chose the path of
scientifically oriented thinking. The inherently human element of society
had been lost. This happened at a time when the leading classes were
cultivating a scientific mode of thinking which no longer possessed the
spiritual impact necessary to satisfy the manifold needs of an expanding
human consciousness. The old worldviews considered the human being to be a
soul-entity existing within a spiritually existential framework. According
to modern scientific thought, however, he is no more than a natural being
within the natural order of things. This science is not experienced as a
current which flows into man's mind from a spiritual world which also
sustains his soul. An impartial consideration of history reveals that
scientific ideation has evolved from religious ideation. This must be
admitted in spite of how one may feel about the relationship between the
various religious impulses and modern scientific thinking. But these old
worldviews, with their religious foundations, were not able to impart their
soul-sustaining impulses to modern modes of thinking. They withdrew and
tried to exist outside these modes of thinking at a consciousness level
which the proletarian mind found inaccessible. This level of consciousness
was still of some value to the members of the ruling classes, as it more or
less corresponded to their social position. These classes sought no new
conceptions because tradition enabled them to retain the old. But the
worker, stripped of his traditions, found his life completely transformed.
Deprived of the old ways, he lost the ability to take sustenance from
spiritual sources, from which he had also been alienated. Broadly speaking,
modern scientism developed simultaneously with technology and capitalism,
attracting in the process the faith and confidence of the modern
proletariat in search of a new consciousness and new values. But the
workers acquired a different relationship to scientism than did the members
of the ruling classes, who did not feel the need to adapt their own
psychological needs to the new scientific outlook. In spite of being
thoroughly imbued with the scientific conception of causal relationships
leading from the lowest animal up to man, it remained for them a purely
theoretical conviction; they did not feel the necessity to restructure
their lives according to this conviction. The naturalist Vogt and the
popular science writer Büchner, for example, were certainly imbued with the
scientific outlook. Alongside this outlook, however, something was active
in their souls which enabled them to retain certain attitudes in life which
can only be justified through belief in a universal, spiritual order of
things. How differently scientism affects someone whose life is firmly
grounded in such circumstances and the modern proletarian who is
continuously harangued by agitators during his few free hours with such
things as:modern science has cured man of
believing that he has a spiritual origin; he knows now that in primitive times he clambered
indecorously around in trees and that he has a purely natural origin. The
modern proletarian found himself confronted with such ideas whenever he
sought a psychological foundation which would permit him to find his place
in the scheme of things. He became deadly serious about the new scientism
and drew from it his own conclusions about life. The technological,
capitalistic age affected him quite differently than it did the ruling
classes, whose way of life was still supported by spiritually rewarding
impulses; it was in their interest to adapt the accomplishments of the new
age to this life-style. The proletarian however, had been deprived of his
old way of life which, in any case, was no longer capable of providing him
with a sense of his value as a human being. The only thing which seemed
capable of providing the answer to the question: What is a human being? —
was the new scientific outlook, equipped as it was with the powers of faith
derived from the old ways.
It is of course possible to be amused
at the description of the proletarian's manner of thinking as ‘scientific’;
but only by equating science with what is acquired through years of
attendance at ‘institutes of higher learning,’ and by contrasting it to the
consciousness of the proletarian, who is ‘unlearned.’ Such amusement
ignores one of the decisive facts of contemporary life, namely that many a
highly educated person lives unscientifically, while the unlearned
proletarian orients his entire way of life according to a science which he
perhaps does not even possess. The educated person has taken science and
pigeon-holed it in a compartment of his mind, but his sentiments are
determined by societal relations which do not depend on this science. The
proletarian, however, is obliged by his circumstances to experience
existence in a way which corresponds to scientific convictions. His level
of knowledge may well be far removed from what the other classes call
‘scientific’; his life is nevertheless oriented by scientific ideation. The
life-style of the other classes is determined by a religious, an aesthetic,
a general cultural foundation; but for him ‘science,’ down to its most
insignificant details, has become dogma. Many members of the leading
classes consider themselves to be ‘enlightened,’ ‘free-thinking.’
Scientific conviction certainly lives in their intellects, but their hearts
still pulse with unconscious vestiges of traditional beliefs.
What the old ways did not transmit to
the scientific outlook was the awareness of a spiritual origin. The members
of the ruling classes could afford to disregard this characteristic of
modern scientism because their lives were still determined by tradition.
The members of the proletariat could not. Tradition had been driven from
their souls by their new position in society. They inherited the scientific
outlook from the ruling classes and turned it into the basis for a
conception of the essence of man, a conception which was ignorant of its
own spiritual origin; which, in fact, denied any such spiritual
origin.
I am well aware of what effect these
ideas will have on non-members of the proletariat and members alike, who
feel themselves to be practical people, and who consequently consider what
has been said here to be remote from reality. But the facts which are
emerging from the world situation will eventually prove this opinion
erroneous. An objective consideration of these facts reveals that a
superficial interpretation of life only has access to ideas which no longer
coincide with the facts. Prevailing thought has been ‘practical’ for so
long that it has not the slightest relationship to the facts. The present
catastrophic world situation could be a lesson for many: what did they
think would happen, and what did happen? Must this also be the case with
social thinking?
I can also imagine the reproach of
someone who professes the proletarian viewpoint: ‘Another one who would
like to divert the basic issues of the social question on to paths which
are amenable to the bourgeoisie.’ Such a person does not realize that,
although destiny has placed him in a proletarian milieu, his mode of
thinking has been inherited from the ruling classes. He lives proletarian,
but he thinks bourgeois. The new times do not only require a new way of
life, but also a new way of thinking. The scientific outlook will become
life sustaining only if its manner of dealing with the question of a fully
human attitude to life attains to a force equal to that which animated the
old ideas.
A path is herewith indicated which
leads to the discovery of one element of the modern proletarian movement.
At the end of this path a conviction is intoned in the proletarian mind: ‘I
seek a spiritual life. But spiritual life is an ideology, a reflection in
people of outward occurrences which does not originate in a spiritual
world.’ What has emerged in modern times in the transition from the old
cultural-spiritual life is regarded by the proletariat as ideology. In
order to capture the mood of the proletarian mind as it manifests itself in
social demands, it is necessary to realize what effect the view that
spiritual life is an ideology can have. It is possible to object that the
average worker knows nothing of this view, that it more likely addles the
half-educated minds of his leaders. To hold this opinion is to be ignorant
of the facts, is to be unaware of what has taken place in the lives of the
working classes during the last decades, is to be blind to the relationship
which exists between the view that spiritual life is an ideology, the
demands and deeds of the so-called ‘ignorant’ radical socialists and the
acts of those who hatch revolutions out of obscure impulses.
It is tragic that there is so little
empathy for the emerging mood of the masses and for what is really taking
place in people's minds. The non-proletarian listens with anxiety to the
demands of the proletariat and hears the following: ‘Only through
socialization of the means of production is it possible for me to attain to
a dignified human existence.’ What he does not realize is that his class,
in the transition from the old times to the new, has not only set the
proletarian to work at means of production which are not his, it has also
failed to provide him with nourishment for his soul. People who think in
the way described above may claim that the worker simply wants to attain to
the same standard of living which the ruling classes possess, and they will
ask what this has to do with his soul. Even the worker may contend that he
claims nothing from the other classes for his soul, that he only wants them
to stop exploiting him and that class differences cease to exist. Such talk
does not reach the essence of the social question, reveals nothing of its
true nature. For had the working people inherited a genuine spiritual
content from the ruling classes, and not one which considers spiritual life
to be an ideology, then its social demands would have been presented quite
differently. The proletarian is convinced of the ideological nature of
spiritual life but becomes steadily unhappier as the result of this
conviction. The effects of this unconscious misery, from which he suffers
acutely, outweigh by far in importance for the present social situation the
justified demands for an improvement in external conditions.
The members of the ruling classes do
not recognize themselves as the authors of the militancy which confronts
them from the proletarian world. But they are the authors in that they have
bequeathed to the proletariat a spiritual life which is bound to be
considered an ideology.
The social movement is not
characterized by the demand for a change in the living standards of a
particular social class, but rather by how the demand for this change is
translated into reality by means of the thinking of this class. Let us
consider the facts for a moment from this point of view. We will see how
those persons who like to think along proletarian lines smile at the
contention that any spiritual endeavor could possibly contribute toward
solving the social question. They dismiss it as ideology, as abstract
theory. They think that no meaningful solutions to the burning social
questions of the day can come from mere ideas, from a so-called spiritual
life. But upon closer examination it becomes obvious that the nerve center,
the fundamental impulse of the modern proletarian movement, does not reside
in what the proletarian talks about, but in ideas.
The proletarian movement is – to an
extent perhaps unequaled by any similar movement in history – a movement
born of ideas. The more closely it is studied, the more emphatically is
this seen to be true. This conclusion has not been arrived at
lightly.For years I
taught a wide range of subjects in a workers' educational
institute [The Course of my
Life. Although his courses were very popular with the worker-students, he
was eventually forced to leave because the content of his teaching was
neither materialistic nor Marxist.] Through this experience I have come to recognize
what is alive and striving in the modern proletarian worker's soul. I was
also able to observe the activities of the various labor and trade unions.
I feel, therefore, that I do not base myself on mere theoretical
considerations, but on the results of actual experience.
To know the modern workers' movement
where it is being carried out by workers (unfortunately, this is seldom the
case as far as the leading intellectuals are concerned) is to recognize the
profound significance of the fact that a certain trend of thought has
captured the minds of an exceedingly large number of people in an extremely
intensive way. The fact that the social classes are so antagonistic to each
other makes the formulation of a position regarding social problems quite
difficult. The middle classes of today find it very difficult to identify
with the working class and cannot therefore understand how such an
intellectually demanding dialectic as that of Karl Marx – regardless of
what one may think of its content – could have found receptivity in the
virgin proletarian intelligence.
Karl Marx's system of thought can be
accepted by one individual and rejected by another, perhaps with reasons
which appear to be equally valid. It was even revised after the death of
Marx and his friend Engels by those who saw society from a somewhat
different viewpoint. I do not wish to discuss here the content of this
system, which is not, in my opinion, the meaningful element in the modern
proletarian movement. Its most meaningful characteristic is, to me, the
fact that the most powerful impulse active in the working-class world is a
system of thought. No practical movement with such fundamental, everyday
demands has ever stood so exclusively on a foundation of pure ideation as
does this modern proletarian movement. It is the first movement of its kind
in history to have chosen a scientific foundation. This fact must be
properly understood. What the modern proletarian consciously has to say,
program-wise, about his own opinions, his wants and his feelings, does not
seem to be essential.
Most important is that the intellectual
foundation for life affects the whole man, whereas the other classes
restrict it to particular compartments of the mind. The proletarian is
unable to acknowledge this process because the realm of intellect, of
thought, has been bequeathed to him as an ideology. In reality he builds
his life on ideas, which at the same time he considers to be unreal
ideology. It is not possible to understand the proletarian interpretation
of life and its realization through the acts of its adherents without also
comprehending this fact and its consequences for human
evolution.
It follows from what has been expounded
above that any description of the true nature of the proletarian social
movement must give priority to a description of the modern worker's
spiritual life. It is essential that the worker sense the causes of his
unsatisfactory social situation and encounter the methods for changing it
in this same spiritual life. Nevertheless, at present he is not yet able to
do anything except angrily or contemptuously reject the contention that a
meaningful impellent resides in these spiritual undercurrents of the social
movement. How is he to recognize an impellent, which affects himself, in
what he must consider to be an ideology? One cannot expect to resolve an
untenable social situation by means of a spiritual life so perceived. Due
to a scientifically oriented point of view not only science itself, but
also art, religion, morality and justice are considered to be facets of
human ideology by the modern proletarian. He sees in these aspects of
spiritual life nothing that relates to the reality of his existence and
which could contribute to his material well-being. To him they are a mere
reflection of the material life. Although they may indirectly react upon
man's material life through the intellect or by influencing will impulses,
they originally arose as ideological emanations of this same material life.
He feels that they cannot contribute to the solution of social problems.
The means to the end can only originate in material reality.
The new spiritual life has been passed
on by the leading classes to the proletarian intellect in a devitalized
form. It is of primary importance that this be understood when considering
the forces to be utilized in solving the social question. Should this state
of affairs remain unchanged, the spiritual life of mankind will be
condemned to impotence as far as the social challenges of the present and
the future are concerned. A majority of the modern proletariat is
absolutely convinced of this impotence, a belief which is brought to
expression through Marxism and similar confessions. It is said that modern
capitalism has evolved from older economic forms, that this evolution has
placed the proletariat in an untenable position with respect to capital,
that the evolution will continue until capitalism destroys itself by means
of the forces inherent in it and that the liberation of the proletariat
will coincide with the death of capitalism. Later socialist thinkers have
divested this conviction of the fatalistic character assigned to it by
certain Marxist circles. Nevertheless, its essential nature remains, as is
evidenced by the fact that it would not occur to a contemporary socialist
to say that the incentive for the social movement could derive from an
interior life born of impulses of the times and which has its roots in
spiritual reality.
The mental attitude of the person
forced to lead a proletarian life is determined by the fact that he cannot
cherish such expectations. He needs a spiritual life which emanates the
strength to enable him to sense his human dignity. Being harnessed to the
modern capitalistic economic order, his soul necessarily thirsted for some
such spiritual life. But the spiritual life handed to him by the ruling
classes created an emptiness in his soul. The present-day social movement
is determined by the fact that the modern proletarian desires a quite
different relationship to spiritual life than the contemporary social order
can give him; and this is what is behind his demands. This fact is clearly
understood neither by the proletariat nor by the non-proletarian. The
non-proletarian does not suffer under the ideological label (of his own
making) attached to spiritual life. The proletarian does. And this
ideological label has robbed him of belief in the sustaining value of
spiritual values as such. Finding the way out of the present chaotic social
situation depends upon a correct insight into this fact. Access to this way
has been closed by the social order which has evolved, along with the new
economic forms, under the influence of the ruling classes. The strength to
open it must be acquired.
There will be a complete change of
attitude concerning this subject when sufficient importance has been
attributed to the fact that a society of men and women in which spiritual
life functions as an ideology lacks one of the forces which makes the
social organism viable. Contemporary society has become ill due to the
impotence of spiritual life, and the illness is aggravated by reluctance to
recognize its existence. By recognizing this fact we would acquire the
foundation on which ideas could be developed which are truly appropriate to
the social movement.
The proletarian believes that he
touches on one of his soul's basic strengths when he talks of class
consciousness. The truth, however, is that ever since he has been harnessed
to the capitalistic economic order, he has been seeking a spiritual life,
one which can sustain his soul and make him conscious of his dignity as a
human being. But a spiritual life considered to be ideology is not able to
develop this consciousness. He has sought this consciousness, and when he
could not find it, he substituted the concept of class
consciousness.
His gaze is directed exclusively toward
economic factors, as though drawn there by a powerfully suggestive force.
He therefore no longer believes that the impetus necessary to accomplish
something positive in the social field can be found anywhere else. He
believes that only the evolution of the spiritless, soulless economic life
can bring about conditions which he feels correspond to human dignity. He
is therefore forced to seek his salvation in the transformation of economic
life. He is forced to conclude that through the transformation of economic
life all the injuries will disappear which derive from private enterprise,
from the individual employer's egotism and inability to satisfy the
employees' demands for human dignity. Thus, the modern proletariat has come
to see the only remedy for the social organism in the transfer of all
privately owned means of production to community operation or even
community [state] property. This opinion was possible because we have
diverted our attention from spiritual forces and concentrated solely on the
economic process.
This is the source of the contradictory
elements in the proletariat movement. The modern proletarian believes that
he will attain to his rights as a human being through developments in the
economic field. He is fighting for these rights. And yet, in the process
something appears which could never be the result of economic activities
alone. This phenomenon, which is thought to be the consequence of economic
factors alone, is a very salient feature of the social question. It is a
process which follows a direct line of development from ancient slavery
through the serfdom of the middle ages and up to the modern proletariat.
The circulation of commodities and money, the realities of capital, real
estate, private property and so forth, are all elements of modern life. A
characteristic of contemporary society which is not clearly identified, not
even consciously recognized by the proletarian but which constitutes the
fundamental impulse for his social will, is that the modern capitalistic
economic order, within its own sphere of activity, recognizes only
commodities and their respective values. Within this capitalistic organism
something has become a commodity which the proletarian feels cannot be a
commodity.
The modern proletarian abhors
instinctively, unconsciously, the fact that he must sell his labor power to
his employer in the same way that commodities are sold in the market, and
that the law of supply and demand plays its role in determining the value
of his labor just as it does in determining the value of commodities. This
abhorrence of the commodity nature of work has a profound meaning in the
social movement. Not even the socialist theories emphasize this point
radically enough. This is the second element which makes the social
question so urgent; the first being the conviction that spiritual life is
an ideology.
In antiquity there were slaves. The
whole person was sold like a commodity. Somewhat less of him, but a
substantial part of the human being nonetheless, was incorporated into the
economic process by serfdom. Capitalism is the force which persists in
giving a commodity nature to a portion of the human being: his labor power.
I do not mean to imply that this has not been recognized. On the contrary,
it is recognized as a fact of fundamental importance in the modern social
movement. Nevertheless, it is considered to be of an economic nature, and
the question of the commodity nature of labor is therewith turned solely
into a question of economics. It is erroneously believed that solutions
will be found in economic factors through which the proletarian will cease
to consider the incorporation of his labor power in society as unworthy of
human dignity. How modern economic forms evolved historically and how they
gave human labor power a commodity character is understood. What is not
understood is that it is inherent in economic life that everything
incorporated into it must take on the nature of a commodity. It is not
possible to divest human labor of its commodity character without first
finding a means of extracting it from the economic process. Efforts should
therefore not be directed towards transforming the economic process so that
human labor power is justly treated within it, but towards extracting labor
power from the economic process and integrating it with social forces which
will relieve it of its commodity character. The proletarian yearns for an
economic life in which his labor can assume its rightful place. He does so
because he does not see that the commodity character of his labor is the
result of his being totally harnessed to the economic process. Due to the
fact that he must deliver up his labor to the economic process, he
necessarily delivers up himself along with it. The economic process, by its
very nature, tends to utilize labor in the most expedient manner and will
continue to do so as long as labor regulation remains one of its functions.
As though hypnotized by the power of modern economics, all eyes are focused
on what it alone can accomplish. However, the means through which labor
power no longer need be a commodity will not be found in this direction. A
different economic form will only convert labor into a commodity in a
different way. The labor question cannot be properly integrated into the
social question until it is recognized that the production, distribution
and consumption of commodities are determined by interests which should not
extend to human labor power.
The thinking of our times has not
learned to differentiate between two essentially different functions in
economic life: on the one hand labor, which is intimately associated with
the human being, and on the other hand the
production-distribution-consumption process, which essentially is not.
Should sound thinking along these lines make manifest the true nature of
the labor question, then this same type of thinking will indicate the
position economic life is to assume in a healthy social
organism.
It is already apparent that the ‘social
question’ may be conceived of as three particular questions. The first
pertains to the healthy form spiritual-cultural life should assume in the
social organism; the second deals with the just integration of labor in the
community, and the third concerns the way the economy should function
within this community.