Part 6 (1/2)

Nature's laws are supreme; we cannot change them; we can deviate from them for a while, but the end is evil. That is the lesson we must learn from the history of Humanity's childhood. False conceptions of Man-ignorance of the laws of human nature-have given us unscientific economies, unscientific ethics, unscientific law, unscientific politics, unscientific government. These have made human history the history of social cataclysms-insurrections, wars, revolutions-sad tokens not so much of human l.u.s.t as of human ignorance of the laws of human nature. There is but one remedy, one hope-a science and art of Human Engineering based upon the just conception of humanity as the time-binding cla.s.s of life and conforming to the laws of nature including the laws of human nature.

Chapter VI. Capitalistic Era

The immortal work done by Descartes, Newton and Leibnitz was to discover powerful methods for mathematics-the only fit language for expressing the laws of nature.

Human Engineering will be the science by which the great social problems will be solved. For the first time since the first day of man, humanity will really understand its own nature and status; and will learn to direct scientifically the living and the non-living forces for construction, avoiding unnecessary destruction and waste.

It may seem strange but it is true that the time-binding exponential powers, called humans, do not die-their bodies die but their achievements live forever-a permanent source of power. All of our precious possessions-science, acquired by experience, acc.u.mulated wealth in all fields of life-are kinetic and potential use-values created and left by by-gone generations; they are humanity's treasures produced mainly in the past, and conserved for our use, by that peculiar function or power of man for the binding of time. That the natural trend of life and the progress of the development of this treasury is so often checked, turned from its natural course, or set back, is due to ignorance of human nature, to metaphysical speculation and sophistry. Those who, with or without intention, keep the rate of humanity's mental advancement down to that of an arithmetic progression are the real enemies of society; for they keep the life-regulating ”sciences” and inst.i.tutions far behind the gallop of life itself. The consequence is periodic social violence-wars and revolutions.

Let us carry the a.n.a.lysis of potential and kinetic use-values a little further. All potential use-values left to us by the dead are temporal and differ in utility. Many potential use-values are found in museums and have very limited value to-day in practical life. On the other hand some roads or water-ways built by the ancients have use-value to-day; and an almost endless list of modern potential use-values have or will have use-values for a long time to come, such as buildings, improved lands, railroad tracks, certain machines or tools; the use-value of some such items of material wealth will last for more than one generation. Kinetic use-values are permanent in their character, for, though they may become antiquated, they yet serve as the foundation for the developments that supersede them, and so they continue to live in that to which they lead.

I would draw attention at this point to one of the most important kinetic and potential use-values produced by humanity-the invention of the steam engine. Through this invention, humanity has been able to avail itself, not only of the living fruits of dead men's toil, but also of the inconceivably vast amounts of solar energy and time bound up in the growth of vegetable life and conserved for use in the form of coal and other fuels of vegetable origin. This invention has revolutionized our life in countless directions. To be brief, I will a.n.a.lyse only the most salient effects. Human Engineering has never existed except in the most embryonic form. In remote antiquity the conception and knowledge of natural law was wholly absent or exceedingly vague. Before the invention of the steam engine, people depended mainly upon human powers-that is, upon ”living powers”-the powers of living men, and the living fruits of the labor of the dead. Even then there were manifold complications.

The invention of the steam engine released for human use a new power of tremendous magnitude-the stored-up power of solar energy and ages of time.

But we must not fail to note carefully that we to-day are enabled to use this immense new power of bound-up solar energy and time by a human invention, a product of the dead.

The full significance of the last statement requires reflection. The now dead inventor of the steam engine could not have produced his ingenious invention except by using the living powers of other dead men-except by using the material and spiritual or mental wealth created by those who had gone before. In the inventor's intellectual equipment there was actively present the kinetic use-value of ”bound-up-time,” enabling him to discover the laws of heat, water, and steam; and he employed both the potential and kinetic use-values of mechanical instruments, methods of work, and scientific knowledge of his time and generation-use-values of wealth created by the genius and toil of by-gone generations. This invention was not produced, let us say 6000 years ago, because civilization was not then sufficiently advanced: mathematically considered, the production of this great use-value had to await all the acc.u.mulated work of six thousand years of human ingenuity and human labor. So, if we choose, the steam engine may be considered a kinetic use-value in which the factor of time is equal to something like 6000 years, or let us say roughly 200 generations.

It is obvious that, in one life time, even a genius of the highest order, could not, in aboriginal conditions, have invented and built a steam engine, when everything, even iron, was unknown. Of course if the same inventor could have had a life of several thousands of years and could have consecutively followed up all the processes, unhampered by the prejudices of those days, and been able to make all of these inventions by himself, he would represent in himself all the progress of civilization.

By this ill.u.s.tration we see the profound meaning of the words-the living powers of the dead; we see the grave importance in human life of the factor TIME; we behold the significance of the time-binding capacity of man. The steam engine is to be seen anew, as in the main the acc.u.mulated production of dead-men's work. The life of one generation is short, and were it not for our human capacity to inherit the material and spiritual fruit of dead men's toil, to augment it a little in the brief span of our own lives, and to transmit it to posterity, the process of civilization would not be possible and our present estate would be that of aboriginal man. Civilization is a creature, its creator is the time-binding power of man. Animals have it not, because they belong to a lower type or dimension of life.

Sophistry avails nothing here; a child, left in the woods, would be and remain a savage, matching his wits with gorillas. He becomes a civilized man only by the acc.u.mulation of, and acquaintance with dead men's work; for then and only then can he start where the preceding generation left off. This capacity is peculiar to men; the fact can not be repeated too often.

It is untrue to say that _A_ started his life aided exclusively by the achievements of (say) his father, for his father's achievements depended on the achievements of _his_ immediate predecessors; and so on all the way back through the life of humanity. This fact, of supreme ethical importance, applies to _all_ of us; none of us may speak or act as if the material or spiritual wealth we have were produced by us; for, if we be not stupid, we must see that what we call _our_ wealth, _our_ civilization, everything we use or enjoy, is in the main the product of the labor of men now dead, some of them slaves, some of them ”owners” of slaves. The metal spoon or the knife which we use daily is a product of the work of many generations, including those who discovered the metal and the use of it, and the utility of the spoon.

And here arises a most important question: Since the wealth of the world is in the main the free gift of the past-the fruit of the labor of the dead-to whom does it of right belong? The question can not be evaded. Is the existing monopoly of the great inherited treasures produced by dead men's toil a normal and natural evolution?

Or is it an artificial status imposed by the few upon the many? Such is the crux of the modern controversy.

It is generally known that the invention of the steam engine and other combustion engines which release sun-power for mechanical use, has revolutionized the economic system; for the building of engines in the scale of modern needs, it is necessary to concentrate a great number of living men in one place, to build factories, to set up machines used in producing the engines, and all this requires the use of vast amounts of money. That is why this era is called the capitalistic era. But it is necessary to stop here and a.n.a.lyse the factors of value in the engine to be made and in the money used for the purpose of making use of the stored-up energies of the sun. We have found that the major part of the engine and all factors connected with its production are the combined power of dead men's labor. We have found that wealth or capital and its symbol, money, are also, in the main, the bound-up power of dead men's labor; so that the only way to obtain the benefit in the release of sun-power, is by using the product of the toil of the dead. It is further obvious that only the men or organizations that are able to concentrate the largest amounts of money, representing the work of the dead, can have the fullest use of the stored-up energies of time and the ancient sun.

Thus the monopoly of the stored-up energies of the sun arises from monopolizing the acc.u.mulated fruits of dead men's toil. These problems will, in the future, be the concern of the science and art of Human Engineering.

Let us glance briefly at the problems from another angle. The power developed in the combustion of one pound of coal is theoretically equal to 11,580,000 foot pounds. But by our imperfect methods of utilization, not more than 1,500,000 foot pounds are made available. This is about the amount of physical power exerted by a man of ordinary strength during a day's work. Hence 300 pounds of coal will represent the labor of a man for a year. The current production of coal in the world is about 500,000,000 tons (1906). If we suppose that only half of this coal goes for mechanical use, this will give us approximately the number as 1,600,000,000 man-powers that are producers but not consumers.

Let us take a still broader view of resources; we have approximately 1,600,000,000 living human beings (all censuses available between 1902 and 1906); a wealth of approximately $357,000,000,000 (_Social Progress_, 1906, page 221) which in our a.n.a.lysis is dead men's work; and sun-power equal, in work, to the work of our whole living population, or equal to 1,600,000,000 sun man-powers. Taking, for simplicity's sake, $35.70 as the average living expenses per annum for each one of the _world's_ population, we will have:

(1) 1,600,000,000 living men.

(2) 10,000,000,000 living man-powers of the dead.

(3) 1,600,000,000 sun man-powers.

Such cla.s.sification needs a reflection: man is intrinsically an increasing exponential power and always produces two use-values-the potential and the kinetic. All living men have in some degree this type of power; _they are able to direct and use basic powers_.

So we see that this world is really populated to-day by three different populations, all of them dynamic and active: to wit, 1,600,000,000 living men; 10,000,000,000 living man-powers of the dead; 1,600,000,000 sun man-powers.

Thus it is obvious beyond any argument, _that this additional producing but not consuming_ population, has been produced mainly by the work of all our past generations. It is said ”mainly” because, if we were the first generation, we would be just aboriginal savages having nothing and progressing very slowly. The reason why we progress very rapidly, in this stage of civilization, is explained very clearly by the mathematical law of a geometrical progression, with an ever increasing number of terms, the magnitude of the terms increasing more rapidly all the time.(11)

This fact is the reason why the old unscientific and artificial social system requires and must undergo profound transformation. Human progress, in many directions, is so far advanced that social inst.i.tutions can not much longer continue to lag so far behind. Static ethics, static jurisprudence, static economics, and the rest must become dynamic; if they do not continue to progress peacefully in accordance with the law of the progress of science, they will be forced by violent readjustments, recurring with ever increasing frequency.