Discontent---The Cause of Progress

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 4, 1 May 1913, Page 3

Discontent---The Cause of Progress

In the early stages of human development our aneestors were for the most part content to live in eaves and holes in the ground, and probably naked. In the cold winter season they would see the animals clothed in warm fur and skin, and a desire to possess similar comfortable body-covering would arise in them. They became discontented with their naked state, so they took the furs and skins of the beasts of the forest and field to clothe themselves for the sake of warmth. Likewise a hole in the ground hardly coincided with the ideas of comfort to the more progressive section of early mankind, so the discontented ones rebelled against the ruling fashion and built for themselves a habitation of some kind as protection from the weather, for doing which they doubtless received the epithets of agitator, ” “ meddlesome people, ’ ’ and so forth, from the more conservative part of the community who said, most likely, that their grandfathers had lived in holes in the good old times, and it was good enough for them. What was the world coming to with such new-fangled notions ? Thus down the ages has the path of progress been the action of the discontented. The primitive tent or wigwam has evolved through successive stages to the house of to-day, and the skins which covered the bodies of our savage ancestors have become the more or less fashionable apparel of this century. The same applies to the laws of every country. All new laws are the result of discontent of people with older laws.

The present capitalistic method of production came into being because the rising capitalist class of the mediaeval European cities were discontented with the. way the feudal system hampered the growth of their trade, so they overthrew the obsolete, worn-out way of carrying on society, much to the disgust of the Feudal Kings and Barons, who stood in the way of progress and hindered it all they possibly could. The English Revolution of the middle 17th century, the French Revolution over a hundred years later, and the Chinese rebellion of last year, are cases in point. Even the present economic masters of the earth, although preaching content to the worker, are never contented themselves. They are continually on the look-out for improvements in mechanical appliances and more-up-to-date modes of production to replace those now in use, and, also, they demand the highest standard of efficiency, both mental and physical, from the wage workers in order to accelerate the progress of profit. All the betterment of conditions the worker of to-day happens to possess is because some discontented agitators rebelled against what they thought were not just and equitable conditions of living. Today discontent is rampant everywhere. Men are preaching it in every country, men who have their eyes strained ahead on a better, saner system than this one, and they are trying to implant their progressive ideals in the minds of their fellow workers in order to get them to take the forward step to greater possibilities of life than they have hitherto enjoyed. This does not suit the master class, who know that their command over the means of life depends on the workers being contented to give over to them the major portion of the product of their labour in return for the right to live a cheap existence, while the master class, a privileged few, live in ease and idleness. No, it certainly does not suit them any more than it suited the feudal lords to have discontent preached by the rising capitalist class a century or two ago, and they are trying to quieten it in every possible way. In press, pulpit and hall, they thunder against it; in court, jail, and everywhere they fight it; but it is useless, for progress demands that this system make room for a better one; and discontent is the disciple of progress. This system of production for profit is hopelessly out of date with its poverty, degradation and wasteful destruction of life and limb, and must be put on the scrap heap, or the race will degenerate if it is allowed to go on crushing mankind under the wheels of its Juggernaut, Profit. Discontent, however, is stalking o’er the earth, and where discontent is, action towards progress invariably follows.

Now, you working men, rouse up, refuse to be contented, throw awav the old idea that a cheap, nasty, sordid life of toil is all you can get from this earth. Away with such a thought. Get into the ranks of the dissatisfied, and fight for a freer, nobler life for All, and not poverty for a vast majority of useful workers, and an idle, demoralising existence for a few shirkers. Mankind owes its very life to the individuals who were discontented and refused to be bound by conservative conventions. Fan the flames of discontent and you will have to go forward as a natural consequence. All-powerful is progress, and discontent is its prophet.—C.B.