Sex and Economics

Grace Isabel Colbron

[An address at the Henry George Congress, 13 September 1927, New York, New York
Reprinted from Land and Freedom, November-December 1927]

MOST of us are fully awake to any opportunity of bearing witness to the Truth as we see it. We disciples of Henry George are willing to step into any discussion and try to swing it our way. Indeed, we have that reputation everywhere. As one worried chairman of a big meeting put it, "O these Single Taxers, ... no matter where they start they always come around to Single Tax!" I don't know yet whether he meant it as the very high compliment that it was, this remark of his.

But the above holds good of discussions along lines political and economic. And then we ourselves mourn over the fact that these discussions have not the ear of the general public which is more interested in the Tabloids and the movies. Very well then, why not carry the war into the enemy's camp and show him the base . . . the economic base, of the things he is most interested in? There is a very wide field of discussion, ploughed and harrowed and gone over again and again, ad nauseum wherever "moderns" meet together, which we Single Taxers have altogether neglected. In fact I have heard comrades go seriously into this discussion, for its own sake, apparently with no thought of the connection they might have made between the thing they were discussing and the Faith in which they believe.

These cryptic remarks refer to discussion on that all absorbing subject, to the modern world, of SEX! It may not be in politics just yet, but it certainly is in the tabloids and the movies . . . they could not exist with out it ... and it has the ear of the public. Many a time, when upbraiding the organizers of various dining clubs for not giving their evenings to more important matters, have I received for answer: "People won't come unless you talk about some phase of the Sex Question." The late William Marion Reedy said: "It is always Sex o'clock in our modern literature." And David Seabury, Consultant-Psychologist, writes in a recent Century article:

"The subject of sex has certainly stepped out of the boudoir, thrown off the hushed intimacy of the afternoon knitting, forgotten the privacy of marriage and taken its place at bridge table and club lounge. From three to three score and ten any aspect of it serves for casual reference or minute dissection."

It's a very vague subject, of course, as discussed today. Seven-eighths of the discussers do not know exactly what they mean by sex. And this holds good of the near high brows who prate solemnly of the Freudian "living libido" as it does of the Jazz Sisters and lounge lizards who sing of what Hollywood calls "It." In fact it's safe to say that these last at least have a very clear idea of what the word means to them!

However, understood or not, the subject is discussed openly everywhere today. And yet there is no subject so little able to stand on its own feet, so absolutely dependent on economic conditions in all its manifestations. Therefore, comrades, please remember. This subject of "Sex" today, is a subject you can be frivolous about if you wish to entertain your listeners. But I, for one, cannot see how any disciple of Henry George can treat the subject seriously, as a subject per se, . . . how he can for one moment forget the splendid opportunity for preach ing the straight doctrine in its vast importance, its far reaching influence in every manifestation of what seems like a most personal matter.

To take up the various phases of the sex question as most discussed today: Marriage, to begin with. Of course no one will deny that in marriage, as in any relation which requires adjustment of two individualities to one another, there are many problems that are purely personal, But then they are personal and concern only the two people themselves and are no fit subject for public discussion. And no one with any power of thought at all will deny that the reason for most marital troubles of today can be found in this matter of money. It's always a case of either too little money, or too much. The old folklore proverb, common to every language: "When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window" is deeply true. And the annals of our divorce courts as well as the society columns of our dailies show the effects of too much money among the ranks of those who profit by privilege. Money the economic question therefore.

A condition of society based on a more equal distribution of wealth, brought about by equality of opportunity, will reduce the number of homes where the wolf of poverty can chase love out of the window. And it will reduce the number of homes devastated because of the boredom of too great wealth. And who dare deny that throughout the ages marriage has been intimately connected with the question of "support?" The new era of women's independence, or to be more exact, of women's chance to fight the economic struggle on the same basis as men, has fortunately made it possible for more women to chose at least by inclination rather than by this matter of "support." But again we see it. If a woman gives up her earning power she must consider the earning power of the man she chooses. And the bitter violence of the present day struggle for life renders marriage any thing but what it should be.

Then the most fruitful subject for sex discussion, the problem of prostitution. Chastity, . . . what crimes are committed in thy name! How disgusting the spectacle of the circles who profit by the privilege that makes prostitution powerful, banding together solemnly to "destroy the Social Evil!" What do they do? Chase into the unknown depths a few poor creatures, the saddest victims of economic conditions, banish them from one neighbor hood, ... to what result? Merely higher land values in that neighborhood after it is 'cleaned up.'

The question of prostitution today is solely an economic question. There is no woman offering herself on the streets of our towns today who is doing it for any other reason that that of economic need. This I assert and stand by. I do not deny that there are women as little monogamous by nature as are some men. I know that there are quite a number of women absolutely wanton by nature. But unless these women are absolutely poor they are not on the streets. The divorce courts see them often. Some are in sanatoriums, every fashionable physician could tell of cases. But I repeat, these women are not on the streets. And the women who are in the streets are there because they are too poorly equipped for the economic struggle. And because the economic struggle prevents some man from giving them a chance to be wives and mothers. All other discussion of this "social evil problem" is beside the point, a red herring drawn across the trail by those who do not wish the economic aspect emphasized.

And the question of birth control, also widely and virulently discussed today. There, I admit, we Single Taxers arc in a bit of a quandary. I believe in birth control from one point of view that is to me important, i.e. a woman's right to herself, body and soul, her right to determine how many children she can bear, her right to refuse to tax her ability to give a mother's best care. But I refuse to advocate birth control from the point of view most in evidence today, the fact that without it the class of Have Not will vastly outnumber the class of Have and may prove a social peril. This attitude we Single Taxers should never countenance. We must emphasize that the point of view is quite correct as economic conditions stand today. With artificial restrictions of natural resources, with a total lack of equality of opportunity, every child borne into the social stratum which is on the wrong side of privilege does present an increasing social problem. But to those of us who do not believe that such conditions are an inevitable concomitant of material progress, it is a cruel and bitter doctrine.

We know that for every mouth to be fed which comes into the world, two hands come, strong to toil for food for that mouth, and a brain which can, if developed, increase ten and an hundred fold the productivity of those hands, . . . were opportunity equal, were natural resources free to all. Therefore, the birth control discussion affords a splendid opportunity to preach the Truth as we know it. Among the birth control advocates as among its opponents. We must differentiate its aspect of personal freedom which brings us in line with its advocates. But we must never accept the theory that conditions of today, which make restriction of population a burning necessity, are inevitable. We know they are not and it is our business to go about helping to change them, so that every human soul that comes into the world shall be welcome, ... in a free world!

Hunger and love are the two great impulses of all life, all action in the world today. But hunger, the urge to self-preservation, comes first, endures longest. It is the first unconscious impulse of the helpless child, still hardly more than an embryonic cell of human life. And it persists as long as life persists, after sight, hearing, all other senses, and even the motor power is gone.

It is the cause of all progress on the earth today, this urge for self-preservation; all material advance has come from the urge in man's soul to satisfy his desires along the 1 line of least resistance. Love, the other great impelling urge, the sex urge, the instinct for preservation of the race, is strong. It is Nature's own method of carrying on the race. But to the individual it occupies but a comparatively small period in his life. Nature lets him struggle for himself before she forces him to carry on his kind. Both are the driving force of all action. But an over emphasis on the secondary need would seem, on the surface, to be the keynote of our life in the modern community. To my mind it is oftentimes that red herring drawn across the trail to ward off unpleasant facts concerning right and wrong of the economic struggle. And indeed this economic struggle with its emphasis on the buying and selling of everything, with no human rights left to anything, has caused the overemphasis of one side of the sex question, when we restrict that question to the problem of the relations of man and woman. Sex lust is the only side of love that can be bought and sold. One cannot buy and sell what love means apart from the physical. Therefore a world which has become a struggle such as the beasts never know, finds its amusement in the practice, and the discussion, of this one side of love which is an economic factor, i.e., something to buy and sell.

A splendid opportunity for us, comrades, this popular subject of discussion. If we can always remember to emphasize how strong the influence of Hunger, the greatest primal urge, on Love, the secondary purpose of human life. If Hunger were only the natural urge to progress, as we would make it, not the cruel taskmaster making humans inhuman to one another, as it is today, then indeed would the secondary urge of Love take its rightful place as the uplifting, ennobling and beautifying element in our lives.

Our concern is with Hunger. Adjust that problem aright, Love will take care of itself.