[To the Editor of TIIE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—After the contributions of
Dr. Inge and Mr. John Strachey it would be interesting to hear further discussion on the value of labour. Neither writer appears to take account of any other basis for the distribution of goods than the economic value of work done. Undoubtedly this is the accepted basis, and one can understand its perpetuation in a Communism designed merely to bring about "plenty and peace." But it does seem open to question whether the amount of goods a man is to receive ought always to depend upon this.
In the case of industrial labour such a standard has already ceased to be workable. We are able to produce all we want without using all the labour available, but the goods produced are distributed as if, because his labour is not needed, an unemployed man has no right to the same amount of goods as a man at work.
The Communist answer is to share the work among the whole body of workers, so that each has leisure as well as work. But we are coming to a time when the leisure will become more important than the work, and in such a world it would seem contradictory to retain the old standard for the distribution of material goods.
The alternative answer (which in spite of Mr. Strachey may well be inherent in Communism, though it would mean the abandonment of its materialist philosophy) is to make a man's livelihood independent of his occupation. Dr. Inge has reminded us of the economic status of the rulers in Plato's State, and we see the same principle applied in the payment of justices in this country. The obvious objection is that a man will not work without a material incentive. This may be true now, but in the future he will have to, or else leisure will become synonymous with idleness. And though we may adopt a " sentimental " or " humanitarian " view of the claim to a livelihood, it is difficult to see how the problem can be solved unless men can learn, when they need not work for a living, to pursue an occupation for its own sake. After all, a Boy Scout does not expect his good turn to be rewarded.—Yours truly, R. E. G. DAWSON.
Brasenose College, Oxford.
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