WORK
HOURS
"The
so-called "division of labour" has grown
under a system which condemned the masses to toil all the day long, and all the
life long, at the same wearisome kind of labour. But
if we take into account how few are the real producers of wealth in our present
society, and how squandered is their labour we must recognise that Franklin* was right in saying
that to work five hours a day would generally do for supplying each member of a
civilised nation with the comfort now accessible for
the few only.
But we have made some progress since Franklin's time, and some of that
progress in the hitherto most backward branch of production--agriculture --has
been indicated in the preceding pages. Even in that branch the productivity of labour can be immensely increased,
and work itself rendered easy and pleasant. If everyone took his share of
production, and if production were socialised--as
political economy, if it aimed at the satisfaction of the ever-growing needs of
all, would advise us to do--then more than one half of the working day would
remain to everyone for the pursuit of art, science, or any hobby he or she
might prefer; and his work in those fields would be the more profitable if he
spent the other half of the day in productive work--if art and science were
followed from mere inclination, not for mercantile purposes. Moreover, a
community organised on the principles of all being
workers would be rich enough to conclude that every man and woman, after
having; reached a certain age--say of forty or more--ought to be relieved from
the moral obligation of taking a direct part in the performance of the
necessary manual work, so as to be able entirely to devote himself or herself
to whatever he or she chooses in the domain of art, or science, or any kind of
work. Free pursuit in new branches of art and knowledge, free creation, and
free development thus might be fully guaranteed.. And
such a community would not know misery amidst wealth. It would not know the
duality of conscience which permeates out life and stifles every noble effort.
It would freely take its flight towards the highest regions of progress
compatible with human nature." – Chapter VIII, FIELDS, FACTORIES & WORKSHOPS, Peter Kropotkin,
Second Edition 1912
"In the domain of
agriculture it may be taken as proved that if a small part only of the time
that is now- given in each nation or region to field culture was given to well
thought out and socially carried out permanent improvements of the soil, the
duration of work which would be required afterwards to grow the yearly
bread-food for an average family of five would be less than a fortnight every
year; and that the work required for that purpose would not be the hard
toil of the ancient slave, but work which would be agreeable to the physical
forces of every healthy man and woman in the country.
It has been proved that
by following the methods of intensive market- gardening-partly under
glass-vegetables and fruit can be grown in such quantities that men could be
provided with a, rich vegetable food and a profusion of fruit, if they
simply devoted to the task of growing them the hours which everyone willingly
devotes to work in the open air, after having spent most of his day in the
factory, the mine, or the study. Provided, of course, that the production of
food-stuffs should not be the work of the isolated individual, but the
planned-out and combined action of human groups.
It has also been
proved-and those who care to verify it by themselves may easily do so by
calculating the real expenditure for labour which was
lately made in the building of workmen's houses by both private persons and
municipalities 1 -that under a proper combination of labour, twenty to twenty-four months of one man's work
would be sufficient to secure for ever, for a family of five, an apartment or a
house provided with all the comforts which modern hygiene and taste could
require.
And now, in the
presence of all these conquests -what is the reality of things?
In industrially
developed countries, a couple of months' work, or even much less than that,
would be sufficient to produce for a family a rich and varied vegetable and
animal food.
One month of work every
year would be quite sufficient to provide the worker with a healthy dwelling." – Chapter IX, F F
& W
"For centuries
science and so-called practical wisdom have said to man: "It is good to be
rich, to be able to satisfy, at least, your material needs; but the only means
to be rich is to so train your mind and capacities as to be able to compel
other men-slaves, serfs or wage-earners -to make these riches for you. You have
no choice. Either you must stand in the ranks of the peasants and the artisans
who, whatsoever economists and moralists may promise them in the future, are
now periodically doomed to starve after each bad crop or during their strikes
and to be shot down by their own sons the moment they lose patience. Or you
must: train your faculties so as to be a military commander of the masses, or
to be accepted as one of the wheels of the governing machinery of the State or
to become a manager of men in commerce or industry." For many centuries
there was no other choice, and men followed that advice, without finding in it
happiness, either for themselves and their own children, or for those whom they
pretended to preserve from worse misfortunes.
But modern knowledge
has another issue to offer to thinking men. It tells
them that in order to be rich they need not take the bread from the mouths of
others; but that the more rational outcome would be a society in which men,
with the work of their own hands and intelligence, and by the aid of the
machinery already invented and to be invented, should themselves create all
imaginable riches. Technics and science
will not be lagging behind if production takes such a direction. Guided by
observation, analysis and experiment, they will answer all possible demands.
They will reduce the time which is necessary for producing wealth to any
desired amount, so as to leave to everyone as much leisure as he or she may ask
for. They surely cannot guarantee happiness, because happiness depends as
much, or even more, upon the individual himself as upon his surroundings. But
they guarantee, at least, the happiness that can be found in the full and
varied exercise of the different capacities of the human being, in work that
need not be overwork, and in the consciousness that
one is not endeavouring to base his own happiness upon
the misery of others.
In the domain of
agriculture it may be taken as proved that if a small part only of the time
that is now- given in each nation or region to field culture was given to well
thought out and socially carried out permanent improvements of the soil, the
duration of work which would be required afterwards to grow the yearly
bread-food for an average family of five would be less than a fortnight
every year; and that the work required for that purpose would not be the
hard toil of the ancient slave, but work which would be agreeable to the
physical forces of every healthy man and woman in the country. Chapter IX, F F & W
These are the horizons
which the above inquiry opens to the unprejudiced mind. End of Chapter IX, F F & W
"Overwork
is repulsive to human nature--not work. Overwork for supplying the few with
luxury--not work for the well-being of all. Work is a physiological necessity,
a necessity of spending accumulated bodily energy, a necessity which is health
and life itself. If so many branches of useful work are so reluctantly done
now, it is merely because they mean overwork, or they are improperly organised. But we know--old Franklin knew it--that four
hours of useful work every day would be more than sufficient for supplying
everybody with the comfort of a moderately well-to-do middle-class house,
if we all gave ourselves to productive work, and if we did not waste our
productive powers as we do waste them now." - Peter Kropotkin,
ANARCHIST COMMUNISM: Its Basis and Principles, 1887
*Benjamin Franklin (January 17 [O.S. January 6] 1706
– April 17, 1790). That's right,
sometime in the 18th C. Franklin uttered these words concerning the
really necessary work hours per day (4-5), decades before the Anarchist
economic researchers and Marx arrived at the same conclusion.
Kropotkin treats the matter of how many hours of work are required
of whom and under what conditions in
depth in Chapter
VIII of THE CONQUEST OF BREAD (See: http://tinyurl.com/fdtvn)
We have
already obtained the unanimous assent of those who have studied the subject,
that a society, having recovered the possession of all riches accumulated in
its midst, can liberally assure abundance to all in return for four or five
hours effective and manual work a day, as far as regards production." Anarchism: It's Philosophy and Ideal", Peter Kropotkin,
1896
Albert
Parsons: "With regard to the feasibility of this (eight-hour) law, Congress
has the power, under the Constitution, to pass it. We ask it; we demand it, and
we intend to have it. If the present Congress will not give it to us we will
send men to Congress who will give it to us.... The eight-hour league, and the
trades unions, and the other organizations of the country that are making this
demand do not propose thereby to paralyze industry. They do not propose to
bring an
industrial collision or a state of anarchy, or to precipitate revolution or a
state of anarchy, or to precipitate revolution in this country. We are
peaceable citizens, husbands, fathers. We are citizens
of the State and law-abiding men.... The working classes simply seek to improve
their condition. This is a natural feeling, and I cannot say that there is
anything unnecessarily seditious or criminal in such a desire. We simply want
less work and more pay, knowing that only through short hours and high wages
can our condition be improved. We know this, and hence we struggle for it. We
wish to get at it by degrees.. . . The first thing
that we demand is a measure that will
diminish the immediate power of wealth, and will remove the worst forms of
poverty. The immediate power of wealth consists in this power to enforce men to
submit to the terms dictated by wealth, out of which men will perform a day's
labor. That is the immediate power of wealth. This is an evil which should be
removed, and we want to remove the worst disability of poverty by reducing the
hours of labor; by the distributing of work that is to be done more equally
among the workingmen... By making labor scarce we will increase its value. Under our system of labor there is no such
thing as freedom of contract." http://tinyurl.com/2olrd7
Parsons wrote that if
the eight-hour day were won then the employing class will have to pay us as
much for eight hours' work as they do now for ten. Employers will put
labor-saving machinery to work instead of the high-priced laborers. The
laborers will then for the same reason that they reduced the hours to eight,
have to reduce them to six hours per day. A voluntary reduction of the work
hours is a peaceful solution to the labor problem.... Wages in this way will
increase until they represent the earnings, instead of, as now, the
necessities, of the wage-laborer. This would result in a system of universal
cooperation and distribution. http://tinyurl.com/3cwosr
See: Johann Most's speech: "THE BEAST OF PROPERTY", c. 1884, which can be found on
the following URL: http://tinyurl.com/kxr8w
"Under
socialism…With the idle rich and the idle poor working and the work day four
hours long their bodies will grow strong again and their minds sane." –
"Brutal
Treatment of the Unemployed in Sacramento Star" – Helen Keller, March 16,
1914
"It
can be statistically proven that three hours' work a day, at most, is
sufficient to feed, shelter, and clothe the world and supply it not only with
necessities but also with all modern comforts of life." – Alexander
Berkman, Now and After: THE ABC OF COMMUNIST ANARCHISM, Chapter 22, New York: Vanguard Press, 1929.
"THE ABOLITION OF WORK" by Bob Black:
http://tinyurl.com/f8wq6
"The living man can, in
truth, not only work to live but he wants to feel his life in work, and during
work to rejoice I his work. He needs not only recreation, rest and joy in the evening, he needs, above all, pleasure in his activity
itself, strong presence of his soul in the functions of his body. Our age has
made sort, the unproductive, playful activity of muscles and nerves into a sort
of work or profession. In real culture work itself
again becomes a playful unwinding of all our energies." - FOR SOCIALISM, Gustav Landauer,
pg. 95
"No
one wants to spend their whole life in the factory or workshop, but everyone
needs nails, transportation, or rope at some time, It
would only be fair that all people spend a few hours every week helping to
provide these useful products in co-operation with their fellows. Machines do
help us make these things more easily; people only become slaves to their
machines because they are slaves to their bosses and to a wasteful,
growth-oriented economy. If there were no useless bosses who collect the
profits but do no work at the machines they own or oversee, and if production
did not always have to be increased to fuel an ever-expanding, growth-oriented
consumerism, then it is doubtful that any of us would have to work more than a
few hours per week. Those who are by temperament "workaholics" could
spend their time improving upon, and experimenting with, products or projects
of their choice." - "ANARCHO-SYNDICALSIM,
TECHNOLOGY and ECOLOGY" by Graham
Purchase http://tinyurl.com/el9fs,
writing in 1995.
The
Catholic Worker Movement: Societal structures
need to be built so that it will be "easy to be good." Advocates the four-hour work day in order that workers
become scholars and Scholars workers. (See: http://tinyurl.com/oou45 ).
I asked a
friend of mine who is a scientist and inventor (he has a number of patents on
his name) what he thinks of this. He answered: Today it would be a two-hour
workday.
Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel