Thorstein Veblen:
Menial Servants during the Period of the War.

The Public, Vol. XXI, (May 11, 1918), pp. 595-599.
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Visitors from oversea tell us of a new France and a new Britain, 
unsparingly cleared for action, war-weary but resolute and untiring; where 
invidious distinctions of class, sex, wealth, and privilege are giving way 
before the exigencies of a war that is to be fought to a finish; where all 
resources of material and man power are being thrown into a common stock of 
means for the prosecution of a joint enterprise whose demands overbear all 
questions of personal gain and immemorial usage.
A year has passed now since America entered on full partnership in this 
joint enterprise. During this time, and the period leading up to it, the 
Americans have contributed much. They have undertaken a burden of debt, and 
they have begun to send their young men into the field. At the same time 
they have also begun to redistribute the industrial forces of the country 
to meet the material demands of the Great War, and to place these war 
demands ahead of in any other things. In a measure, it is coming to be 
realised that the war is a joint enterprise; but it is only in words that 
this realisation has gone so far as to recognise that the nation's 
resources are therefore to be managed as a common stock, devoted to one 
paramount end. There is much edifying talk on this theme, and there has 
been an abundance of moral suasion designed to induce a spirit of sacrifice 
for the common good. But of resolute action and a concerted move toward 
accomplishing something of this kind there has hitherto been surprisingly 
little. The dominant note still is respect of persons and of those 
invidious amenities that distinguish peace from a state of war. There still 
prevails a stubborn reluctance to take such concrete measures as will in 
any degree derange the settled scheme of things as it runs in time of 
peace.
Meantime it is becoming increasingly evident that the Great War is to be 
America's war in the end, if it is to be brought to such a conclusion as 
the Americans will tolerate. It has already become America's part to supply 
the food and other means of its carrying on, and before the conclusion 
comes in sight it will also be America's part to supply the fighting men 
whose force will bring the decision. Yet it visibly continues to be the 
chief abiding concern of the Americans to avoid all derangement of the 
nugatory interests and usages of peace. Popular interest and administrative 
policy are still bent on the maintenance of the domestic status quo - the 
status of competitive gain and competitive spending.
The continued production and profitable sale of superfluities must not be 
materially curtailed; nor must any pressure of a less genial kind than 
well-bred advice and admonition be brought to bear on that voluminous 
scheme of competitive waste in which these superfluities are consumed. Only 
in respect of certain staple articles of food, and less freely in the use 
of fuel, have the exigencies of the common good been allowed to impose 
restrictions on the wasteful use of the means in hand; and then only 
tentatively. Many vested interests, enterprises of private gain, are 
engaged in the production and sale of these superfluities; and these vested 
interests still effectually claim the right of way as against an unreserved 
prosecution of the war. So there are also vested interests in the 
untrammeled consumption of superfluities by persons whose craving for 
social prestige can be gratified only by a conspicuous waste of goods and 
man power; and this right of untrammeled waste, too, is still upheld as 
being a good and righteous exercise of personal liberty in the face of the 
nation's war need.
In the production and competitive sale of superfluities, as well as in 
their decent consumption, a very large aggregate of labor is employed; at 
the same time that labor power is urgently needed for productive use in 
industries necessary to the prosecution of the war. It would be hazardous 
to offer an estimate of the total volume of labor which is so devoted to 
deliberate waste, but no man doubts that the total is very large. Not all 
of this wasted labor force is suitable for use in the war industries. And 
yet there is little of it that cannot be used to good effect; partly by 
direct participation in useful industry, partly by substitution to displace 
other workmen who are fit for useful work.
This wasted labor falls under two heads: (a) Employees engaged in the 
production and sale of superfluities, and (b) those employed in the 
wasteful consumption of superfluities, including the conspicuous waste of 
time and effort by caretakers and attendants in many domestic and public 
establishments.
Typical of the latter class are the many persons to be counted as domestic 
or "menial servants." Not all of the menials are to be counted in as items 
of conspicuous waste, without abatement; but it is not to be overlooked 
that such is ordinarily the nature of their service, with such slight 
abatement as may be reasonably allowed in any given case.
To appreciate the measure in which menial servants are actually dispensable 
in the life of the average American household, even in time of peace, it 
may be called to mind that the ordinary American household gets along 
without hired domestics; that these domestics themselves ordinarily get 
along without the use of servants to minister to their own personal wants; 
and that the number of households which employ domestics is smaller than 
the number of domestics employed - which leaves the common sort of 
Americans unprovided with menial servants. "Servant" implies "Master," of 
course; and the average person, the common man, is not of the master class. 
Now, in time of stress, when it has become expedient to throw all available 
resources into a common stock and to forego personal amenities for the 
common good, it is evident that the lot of the common man must be the lot 
to which all are called on to submit - for the period of the war.
The chief use of menial servants is to put in evidence their employer's 
ability to pay. This invidious use of their services commonly masquerades 
under the profession that they minister to the creature comfort of their 
masters. But it is plainly the spiritual comfort, the sense of self-
complacency and invidious distinction, that is catered to by this class of 
service, rather than the physical well-being of the employers. It is the 
"better classes" that employ menial servants - better in point of social 
prestige. Servants have a "prestige value," as the economists would call 
it. This prestige value, which represents the "output" of such work, is a 
matter of invidious distinction. It is altogether of the nature of a 
spiritual or intangible product; something in the way of a pleasurable 
state of mind on the part of the employer; an article of "psychic income."
Evidently such psychic income, invidious distinction, prestige value, 
intangible goods, or whatever term may best cover the output of the menial 
servant's work, is of very little if any use in the prosecution of the war. 
In effect, these intangible goods are as sand in the bearings of the great 
industrial and military mechanism by which the war is to be won. Yet it 
will be found that many, if not substantially all, of those better classes 
who profess an unbounded patriotic devotion to the democratic cause for 
which the war is fought, still continue to draw on the country's labor 
force for menial service with which to keep themselves in countenance as 
licensed wasters with ability to pay.
The fortunes of war turn finally on the use of the nation's man power, in 
productive industry and under arms. Of material resources there is no lack, 
but of available labor power there is a visible shortage which is bound to 
grow more serious as time passes and the work to be taken care of 
increases, at the same time that the drain on the country's man power goes 
on at a constantly accelerated rate, due to the military and industrial -
demands of the forces under arms. All the while there is in the background 
this body of labor force devoted to menial service and the psychic income 
of the better classes; a body of labor force kept substantially idle, so 
far as regards any productive work.
So the question presents itself: How can the energies of this large body of 
idle man-power be turned to account - diverted from this wasteful 
consumption of superfluities to productive work? It has been suggested, or 
tentatively hinted, that conscription of this idle labor, simple and 
direct, might be resorted to with good effect. But such a degree of odium 
attaches to all manner of coercion, in the mind of the Americans, that 
conscription could presumably not be put into effect until the case had 
become inordinately urgent; that is to say, until too late. At the same 
time conscription in such a case would have to contend with many 
complications and would be disproportionately costly, in that it would 
involve an extensive bureaucratic machinery organised for the purpose.
In analogous cases of perplexity the usual expedient has been some 
ingenious recourse to taxation, which will avoid the formal appearance of 
coercion at the same time that it is counted on to bring the requisite 
pressure to bear where it will bring results. This sentimental aversion to 
coercive measures of all kinds will not apply to a prudently formulated 
tax, in anything like the same degree; but any tax that is to escape 
condemnation on this score must be so laid as not to offend the requirement 
of a formal impartiality. It is in great part a question of the letter of 
the law rather than of its ulterior purpose.
This idle man-power embodied in the servant class is sorely needed for 
present use in productive industry, and to that end it should be 
practicable to lay a steeply progressive tax on those shameless persons who 
still go on employing a staff of unproductive domestics to uphold their own 
personal prestige in the face of the nation's sorest need. There will, 
e.g., be two able-bodied man servants, coachman and footman, in waiting at 
the curb while their patriotic and spendthrift mistress within the gates 
sits in self-appointed council on the state of the republic at large with a 
quorum of ladies as scrupulously ignorant as herself in all those things 
that have any slightest significance for the work in hand. Indeed, merit is 
still to be acquired in that way.
As a measure of expediency, for the period of the war, therefore, the 
suggestion is here offered, tentatively and as a point of departure, that a 
progressive capitation tax be laid on menial servants, payable by their 
employers, rising step by step with every additional servant employed in 
any one household. So it is proposed that any one household of five persons 
or more be allowed one servant tax-free, provided that such household 
includes as many as two children under five years of age. It is, of course, 
to be recognised that the exemption so provided for concedes something to 
the class of households which habitually employ servants, and that the law 
would at this point admit a mitigation of the rule which says that in time 
of stress the common lot must be the lot of all concerned. The suggestion 
has also been made that the like exemption should apply in the case of 
households which include one or more invalids requiring personal service; 
but it is said by those that should know that all such can be more 
adequately and economically cared for in public hospitals and infirmaries, 
under the care of properly trained nurses; and for the period of the war 
some slight home comforts forgone may fairly be overlooked even by well-
bred invalids, if their creature comforts are not neglected. It is 
otherwise as regards households which are made up of bread-winners alone, 
or whose adult members are to be classed as such. In such cases it would 
seem reasonable to let the rule of exemption apply. It is true, the common 
run of households in this country do not, in ordinary times, employ 
servants to the extent so provided for, under the like circumstances of 
bread-winning and child-rearing; but it is believed that the common-sense 
of the community would allow this much of a concession to the established 
usage, according to which those who are able to pay have habitually 
employed servants in the past. It is a concession to usage, and it may be a 
debatable point.
Beginning with the lowest-paid servants in households not exempt under this 
concession, or with the second lowest in households entitled to the 
exemption, it is proposed to impose a tax equal to one hundred percent of 
the wages paid such servants, or their wages and keep in case the servants' 
keep is included in the terms of employment. Beyond this, the second 
taxable domestic would be taxed at the rate of two hundred percent on his 
cost, the third at three hundred percent, etc.; each successive step in the 
series going to the next higher-paid employee, and the rate increasing by 
one hundred percent of the employee's wages at each successive step.
The effect of such a tax should be two-fold: it should set free an 
appreciable number of persons for use in productive occupations; and it 
should yield an appreciable revenue. It will be remarked that such a tax 
will bring no coercive pressure on those who can afford to employ servants, 
particularly not on those who are accustomed to keep a considerable number 
of domestics; yet it is fairly to be presumed that such taxation will 
induce many householders to forgo the use of menial servants, or at least 
to release a reasonable proportion of the number habitually employed. At 
the same time it is reasonably to be expected that those persons who still 
feel constrained by their craving for prestige or for personal comfort to 
employ a staff of menial servants will be favorably inclined to contribute 
in due proportion to the funds necessary for the prosecution of the war, 
and that they will therefore not find the alternative offered them between 
the payment of the tax and the release of their unproductive servants at 
all an onerous choice. Indeed, in view of the present and increasing need 
of workmen in the essential industries, the alternative so offered between 
the release of unproductive servants and the payment of the proposed tax is 
to be rated as a concession to the prejudices of those classes who are able 
to pay.
As has been indicated above, the proposal as it stands is to be regarded 
only as a point of departure for the contemplated plan to release idle 
servants by taxation. It is to be taken as a basis on which to deal with 
other classes of employment and of employees whose services are of the same 
general nature and supplement or take the place of domestic service in one 
way and another. So, e.g., it is obvious that the employees of hotels, 
clubs, theaters, railway stations, sleeping and parlor cars, and an 
indefinite number of analogous establishments, will have to be drawn in 
under the same plan, in some degree and in one way and another. It is also 
an open question how far business concerns engaged in the production and 
sale of superfluities are to be laid under contribution, in men and money, 
under the same general plan.
Evidently the production of those superfluities, for the decent consumption 
of which the menial servants are employed and paid for, is quite as readily 
dispensable as the decent consumption of the superfluities produced for 
this purpose; and evidently there is, in point of principle, no defensible 
ground for the exemption of such business establishments and their 
employees. They serve the same purpose - conspicuous waste with a view to 
social prestige - and they are equally disserviceable for the prosecution 
of the war. There is the difficulty, of course, that many of these 
establishments produce or deal in goods or services that are of material 
use, often of necessary use; even when the goods in question have chiefly a 
prestige value as, e.g., tailors and other producers and sellers of apparel 
for men, women, and children; department stores of the fashionable sort, or 
even the unfashionable ones; places of public entertainment, and public 
vehicles for hire; laundries and bakeshops, etc. But there is also on the 
other hand the difficulty that in case the proposed measure should lead to 
an appreciable release of domestics, these establishments so engaged in 
what may be called personal service would be called on to fill their place 
in some measure by "out-service"; hence it will become imperative to reach 
these domestic-service concerns at large, since the domestics whose release 
is aimed at might otherwise be expected to shift into the employ of these 
"out-service" concerns, and so continue their work as hired consumers under 
another style and title, thereby and in so far defeating the intent of the 
measure. These and the like difficulties will, of course, have to be 
provided for.
It is also a matter of course that there are many and various objections 
and exceptions readily to be found by those who may be interested in 
finding them. E.g., it will be - indeed it has been - said that a large and 
elaborate house such as commonly requires a retinue of menials for its 
upkeep and advantageous exhibition, could not advantageously be inhabited, 
or even kept in running order, without the customary "help." To which is 
fairly to be replied that such a house is in so far, and for the period of 
the war, to be classed among the superfluities; that its maintenance and 
due exhibition in no way conduce to the prosecution of the war; and that 
the common sort on whom chiefly falls the burden of the war have not the 
use of houses requiring a retinue of menials even in times of peace. There 
is also the further consideration that superfluously large houses of this 
kind, which would in this way be left partly vacant, might so become 
available for effectual use as habitations by workmen employed in 
productive work. Some measure should logically be taken to turn such 
superfluous habitations to account to meet the demands of housing, 
particularly in the cities and industrial centers. At the same time, 
country houses that are similarly threatened with decay for want of cheap 
domestics might reasonably be taken over as recreation grounds for workmen, 
and more particularly for their women and children, during the period of 
the war. There is also an ever-increasing need of barracks, billets, 
hospitals, and infirmaries, which may in part be met by the use of such 
houses otherwise lying waste. The houses so turned to a baser use, for the 
period of the war, would presumably not escape some slight defacement in 
their decorative fittings and some enhanced wear and tear at the hands of 
underbred tenants; but all that should go in easily and unobtrusively as a 
willing sacrifice from the side of their owners, for the period of the war.
Again, it is said, with some truth and with more of its counterfeit, that 
the persons hereby released from domestic service would find themselves 
homeless, friendless, and useless in an industrial world in which all their 
previous training would go for naught, resulting in widespread privation 
and a perplexing problem of unemployment. But it is to be remarked that the 
community would still save something by the move, even in the wholly 
improbable case that all these released menials were to fall into the class 
of the unemployed; since, although the community at large would in that 
case have to charge itself with their keep, they will at the worst no 
longer be wasting material resources in the production of superfluities 
which require their combined efforts to consume. It is also to be noted 
that, while many of them have been trained into effectual incompetency for 
useful work, yet it does not follow that even these cannot be made use of - 
boys from the farms and villages are trained into serviceable soldiers in 
the course of weeks and many of them are even made into creditable aviators 
in a few months. Many will find their place in occupations of much the same 
kind that they are used to, in the service of the public or of 
establishments serving the public use; possibly displacing others who are 
better fit for use in the essential industries; and a large number will 
fall into place in work for which their training has prepared them. There 
is no lack of work of the kind demanded of chambermaids and cooks, and 
footmen and butlers are, typically, an eminently able-bodied sort, who will 
readily qualify as stevedores and freight handlers so soon as the day's 
work has somewhat hardened their muscles and reduced their bulk; whereas 
chauffeurs, mechanicians, plumbers, house-carpenters, electricians, 
janitors, gardeners, are already urgently in demand for work that is 
waiting to be done.
This does not by any means exhaust the range of objections to be looked 
for, but it will be seen that all these and such-like objections are of the 
nature of underbrush - convenient to hide in for any persons to whom the 
project is distasteful. They do not touch the substantial merits of the 
plan, as a measure of present expediency. In effect, they only serve to 
call attention to minor difficulties in its execution. A more substantial 
obstacle is likely to be encountered in the known reluctance of any law-
giving body to enact a law which might be presumed, incidentally and for 
the period of the war, to equalise the conditions of life as between the 
servant keeping class from which the law-givers are drawn and the common 
man to whose class the released domestics would bring an increment of 
numbers and discontent.
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