It would really be rather hard if the politicians and the church members had to bear, not only their own share of human blame, but also responsibility for not making chemistry yield up the secrets of nature faster.
This may seem to be making light of the subject, but I am serious and earnest when I say that the need of discovery about social facts, before we can solve the labor problem, is precisely parallel with that in the cases I have cited. There ought not to be any unemployed or underpaid men in the world, just as there ought not to be any unappropriated food in the air, or fugitive fuel sneaking out of our chimneys, or power lost in generation. But who has discovered what is to be done in either case? Until the discovery is made, that "ought" has to be understood in a Pickwickian sense. It expresses our common ignorance and helplessness, not our refusal to do something which is perfectly plain.
Now, let us apply these illustrations a little more closely to the labor problem. Suppose we adopt the general statement that "fair distribution" would solve the labor problem. This sounds very clear and definite. In fact, however, to ninety-nine persons in a hundred it is merely a new way of stating the old puzzle, viz., What is "fair distribution"?
So far as I know, there is only one body of men in the world that can make a perfectly distinct statement of what, in their opinion, would be absolutely fair distribution. That is the group for which Edward Bellamy speaks.[1] His idea of fair distribution is "always and absolutely equal " distribution. The only thorough-going method proposed for making this distribution is the programme of those disciples of Marx who insist upon the time standard of wages, i. e., whatever the occupation, an hour's wage for an hour's work. If we suppose that these two views always go together, which is not invariably the case, then we may say that the world is now divided into two parts : first, those who believe that every man in the world can earn in an hour the same amount that any other man can earn ; second, those who believe that work varies in value. It is not my purpose to discuss these
- ↑ See Fabian Essays, American edition, introduction, p. xvi.
