GOLDEN MOMENTS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 532, 16 May 1933, Page 6

GOLDEN MOMENTS

NOT SPARE TIME DISCUSSION ON VALUES AND USES OF ' LEISURE A GOSPEL OF WORK No deeent art and no decent thought was ever turned out in anybody's spare time — (Douglas Jerrold.) In "The Listener," Mr. Douglas Jerold and Professor H. Levy agree that science has time-shortened and has cheapened production. They agrree that, as a result there are more articles, and there is also more spare (time (leisure) . But they disagree as ■to how the excess of articles and of human time is to be divided among /mankind. ' And they disagree as to ■the value and uses of leisure. Science and Human Time It has been suggested that if 100 men plus science can produce twice as many commodities as were pro.duced by 100 men minus science, and if the price of each commodity were halved, and if the popular consumption of these commodities were thus doubled, then things could go on as before, with full employment. But .•where such cannot be done — or is not done — it has also been suggest- • ed that price and consumption of commodities to be left as they are, and that the 100 men (and science) work half-time. In that case, instead of the commodities reaching twice as many consumers as before, the hundred workers would have twice

as much leisure as before. Again, seeing that in practice ■ things do not proportion themselves • out in such a clean-cut manner as the above proposals suggest, there are people who would compromise between the two suggestions, giving ' something to the eonsumer (in price) and something to the worker in (leisure) — and hoping that the profitmaker would have no insuperable objections. Consumption, wage, profit, leisure are all points in such production planning. Professor Levy is for public planning — indeed, for ; Socialism — and Mr. Jerold is for private enterprise. 3> How to Divide New Benefits At one stage of the argument Professor Levy summed up the issue ,thus: "You see, we've agreed that /there is a net benefit from the application of science in industry, havn't we? It's only a question of how we take that net benefit. Are we to aim at a big increase in leisure and comparatively small increase in our consumption of goods, or are we to * aim at a big increase in our consumpTiton of goods, and a comparatively ' small increase or no increase in our ' leisure, or a compromise between | them? At the present moment we ; aim at nothing at all. We just mudj dle along." j Mr. Douglas Jerold: "But my point | is this, if we are to get out of the i present mess we have got to realise • that we can only get the benfits of ' science in the form of increased goods and not in the form of increased leisure. To put it plainly, not shorter hours, but more food, more clothes, better houses — more wireless, more

gramophone, if you life." Professor Levy: "I suppose you'll force us to go on consuming until we bust. Every lE'skimo wil lhave to have his own Rolls-Royce, and no ,time to use it. That's what you call a civilised life, is it? I'm thinking of a society where leisure will be treasured, and mere grubbing for goods despised. When I talk of progress and of the standard of life going up, I'm thinking of a substantial increase of leisure as well as, say, an oecasional new wireless set . . I look forward to a big increase in leisure, brought about by the steady reduetion of essential work." Mr. Douglas Jerrold: "I see. You want a state of society where your Eskimo has time to run a RollsRoyce, because you have prevented him from making one." III-Distributed Leisure ' Professor Levy: "I suppose that's a fair come-back on what I said just now, but it doesn't seem to me really to make sense! Science is already producing goods and leisure is being abominably distributed by the only people who at present have got the chance to distribute it — the industrial magnate, the big boss, if you like. By dumping it all on the one class he saves wages." Mr. Doulas Jerrold: "I don't agree with a word of that, and I only want to ask one question at this point. When you say that science is producing leisure, but that leisure is badly distributed, I suppose you are thinking of the unemployed?" Professor Levy: "Yes. Look at the unemployment among the working classes, and then look at the mil- ' lions doing a 48-hour week, and some working overtime as well. It is a gro tesque — such a division. Science has helped to create their enforced leisure, but it has no eontrol over its distribution. Science has given us automatic paint-sprayers, for example, instead of individual craftsmen; Pneumatic drills instead of huge gangs of labourers; telephones in the place of innumerable messengers, and then automatic telephones to replace the operators; an adding machine and a typewriter, say, for half a dozen clerks. This is happen'ing both nationally and internationally." Can Idleness be Decent? In the course of further argument, Mr. Jerrold elaborated the case that private enterprise, if not handicapped by taxation and by politicians, would solve the economic unset with justice (but not necessarily with leisure) to everybody. Professor Levy said that private capitalism was perpetuating unemployment and was making everything worse, but "under a Social'ist .regime," the displacement of labour resulting from the application of 'science to industry "can certainly be 'made temporarily by a deliberate and controlled redistribution of 'work." The present form of private enterprise must be destroyed before there could be a sensible distribution of production-benefits and of leisure. "Then we shall have' spare time for 'our hobbies, for creative work of all sorts, whether it is the craftsman

i turning out work of art, the- philosopher exploring new Utopias, or the adult returning to school." Mr. Douglas Jerrold: "Spare time for our hobbies! That all sounds very nice, but don't you realise that no decent art, no decent thought ' was ; ever turned out in anybody's spare time? The greatest curse of our own , people who occupy their spare time in telling other people how to run ; their business."