Employment and Poverty

Grace Isabel Colbron

[A paper read at the Henry George Congress, 11 September, 1928.
Reprinted from Land and Freedom, November-December, 1928]

The problem of increasing unemployment, called by some reformers the "shame of our modern civilization," (and the lion in the path of the politician who would paint the blessings of this best of all worlds), is, for the moment, a matter of such pressing import that it blinds the eyes to the greater shame that lies behind it, the shame that conditions it. The willing worker who cannot find work, and, as a consequence, cannot provide the barest necessities of life for himself or his dear ones is indeed a pitiable, nay even a tragic figure in these days of high- pressure production of wealth. The vague sentiment of the many who are anxious "to do something for somebody" without knowing what, centers around this figure. As do the fears of those who see the danger his increasing numbers mean to any highly civilized community.

But what neither the soft-hearted "philanthropist," nor the opportunist politician, nor, sometimes, even the eager reformer seeking causes, see is the fact that behind this growing unemployment and attendant poverty lie generations, centuries even, of poverty attendant on employment, poverty that has always, as soon as any vestige of "modern civilization" came into being, been the lot of the toiler even while he toiled. This is the very heart and core of the shame of civilization; this fact that work, manual labor employed in basic production, wresting from the earth the necessities of life for mankind, forming them into shape for mankind's use, has seldom put the most willing worker out of reach of poverty that poverty Henry George calls "the open-mouthed relentless hell yawning beneath civilized society."

The shame of our modern civilization is that work, i. e. the basic toil of production, is in very fact synonymous with poverty. Even in these days of Ford cars for the Masses and apparent high wages, the hurried reporter frequently uses the phrase "a poorly dressed man, evidently a working-man." And the "poor but honest working girl in her simple print gown," is still a stock figure of melodrama because so perfectly comprehensible to any audience. The gown is silk now, but cheap silk that does not last, And the change of material is but one opportunity the more for the sob-sister paragraphist or the film scenarist to awaken sympathy with the "pathetic luxuries of the poor."

The danger of passing industrial crises that mean unemployment to many is a very real danger because the great mass of toilers, manual or white-collar class, have never been able to set aside enough money to tide them over such times of depression. The poverty attendant on unemployment, the under-consumption that causes stoppage of the wheels of industry, conditioning more unemployment in an endless vicious circle all this is what it is because employment, steady, exhausting, grinding toil in basic producing industry, has never meant wealth, has scarcely meant even barest comfort for the great mass of workers, has never put but the most flimsy rail-guard between them and this open-mouthed relentless hell of bitterest want. This hell yawns for every manual laborer no matter what the momentary figure of his pay-envelope; for every office worker; it yawns for the man with a small business of his own; it yawns for the intellectual worker, the men and women of the arts and the professions, if they be honest with themselves and refuse to become sycophants of Privilege. It is there waiting, ready to engulf the most faithful worker, the worker lucky enough to secure a "steady job;" it reaches with flaming claws to drag him down if even the barest touch of human ill comes to him, sickness, accident, the desire to help the less fortunate all this means that the worker slides down toward that open-mouthed hell of Poverty waiting ever for him the worker, comrades, not the idler nor the parasite, not the unlucky unemployed alone, but the worker who is willing to work and has work and does work. What if, for the moment, in some parts of our country at least, wages seem to have risen sufficiently to allow of provision for such emergencies. Follow the statistics of the cost of living and you will find that for the average worker the result is the same. He is still skating on the thin edge of this gulf of Poverty, balancing precariously, always in danger of falling in.

The records of any of the charitable organizations, government statistics of wages and of living costs, the columns of our daily papers, tell us an hundred times how true it is that poverty goes hand in hand with employment, that even a working year of fifty-two weeks of forty- eight hours each does not put many a man and many a woman beyond the need of want.

Here, it seems to me, lies our great mission. We need not in any way appear to minimize the problem of unemployment, nor the danger of it to the world of today. Nor need we hold back with the reiteration of our belief that artificial restriction of natural opportunity is the chief cause of unemployment and its attendant ills. But do not let us give too much time, too many words to this. All the political parties pleading for votes today are promising "employment on public work" sick insurance, and the like. England with her "dole" that keeps her poor and leads nowhere, is a fine case in point. It is for us, the followers of Henry George, to point out how little good all this can do; to point out that even if employment, for the moment or for longer, could be found for every willing worker, there would still be grinding poverty, under- consumption, economic injustice, in the midst of this our modern mechanical civilization.

It is for us to point out that the shame of the modern world lies in the fact that work does not mean wealth for the worker lies in the fact that the toiler goes hungry even when he has work, while privileged idleness feasts. It is for us to point out that there never will be any cure for unemployment until we make employment profitable; until the worker receives the full return for his work, now taken from him by parasitic monopoly of natural opportunity and parasitic taxation in its train. It is for us to point out that under the present economic system employment for every willing worker if some paternal government could provide it over night, with all sorts of insurance benefits, "cheap-homes-for-workers" developments and so forth and so on would only mean extra profits for the land-owner, added taxation to make up the difference, higher prices all along the line and the worker little better off in the end. It is for us to point out the fundamental wrong condition that makes unemployment so light a matter for some, so terrible a danger for others. "He who will not work shall not eat." But he who does work is never sure that he will be able to eat tomorrow; whereas there are many who do not work and employ physicians to cure them from the effects of over-eating.

Our mission is to make a suffering world understand that the loss of the job is but the symptom of a worse disease, a symptom of the canker at the heart of our civilization that robs the job of its profit, robs the worker of the return for his labor.

If we deal with the question of unemployment in this sense our contribution to world thought is of value. If we merely fall in with the present day political patter and offer "cures for unemployment," or even causes for it, we are wasting our time. I repeat, the shame of modern civilization is not the temporary appalling unemployment and the poverty resulting from it, terrible as this is; the shame is the fact that employment means poverty only one degree less worse than that resulting from unemployment. And because of this, even the most temporary unemployment spells disaster. Let work which produces wealth mean wealth to the worker. Then a spell of temporary unemployment would mean only welcome leisure.