On Natural Work-Democracy
The material I want to present in this chapter is general and spontaneous human knowledge, a knowledge that is not socially organized and, therefore, has not yet been able to evolve and have a practical effect on the general public.
Social events have once again been caught up in the flux of enormous convulsions. The world over, people are asking: Where do we go from here? What’s to be done now? Which party, which cabinet, what kind of political group, will assume the responsibility for the future fate of European society? I have no answer to these questions, which are on everyone’s lips. Nor is it the intent of this chapter to offer political suggestions. Its sole intent is to draw attention to a concrete, practical and rational fact, which will not be referred to in the many political debates on how the world is to be organized after the war. It is the fact that has been designated as natural work-democracy. Now I want to describe what natural work-democracy is; please note, what it is and not what it should be.
In 1937, i.e., two years before the outbreak of the Second World War, as the storm clouds were gathering over Europe, a pamphlet entitled ‘The natural organization of work in work-democracy’, appeared in Scandinavia. It did not bear the name of its author. It was merely stated that it had been written by a laboratory worker with the consent of other men and women engaged in practical work in this field. It appeared in German, not in a printed form, but merely mimeographed. Later it was translated into English.
It was not widely circulated, for it was not backed up by any political propaganda apparatus and had no political pretensions. But it was acclaimed wherever it was read. It was circulated in small circles in Paris, Holland, Scandinavia, Switzerland and Palestine. Several dozen copies were also smuggled across the German border. It was reviewed only once, in a German Socialist weekly in Paris; otherwise, it did not cause the slightest stir. Far from playing a revolutionary role in the political events of that time, it was soon lost in the turmoil. Nor, for that matter, was it a political pamphlet; quite the contrary, it was a pamphlet against politics, written by a working man. Yet, somehow two things stuck in one’s mind, and they were brought up again and again - en passant, one might almost say - in discussions among men and women of various political orientations and occupations.
One thing was the word ‘work-democracy’. The other was two sentences. They sounded unworldly, alienated from politics, Utopian, and, at bottom, hopeless: ‘Enough, let’s have done with politics once and for all I “Let’s get down to the practical tasks of real life!’
Strangely enough, the political newspaper, which accorded the pamphlet a long article, also centred its critique around the word ‘work-democracy’ and around those sentences that read like a slogan. The article took a sympathetic attitude towards work-democracy, but flatly rejected the slogan. This contradiction showed those who were familiar with the pamphlet that it had not been really understood. Apparently, the pamphlet had been written by a former socialist. It clearly detached itself from all Socialist party methods and concerns. In contradiction to its basic slogan, however, it was full of political formulations and political discussions.
In spite of its deficiencies and its lack of clarity, it was enthusiastically read by a German socialist and smuggled into Germany. In the ensuing six years of war, nothing more was to be heard about it. In 1941, however, a continuation of this first pamphlet appeared under the title, ‘Additional problems of work-democracy’. Like its predecessor, it too was smuggled into several European countries, and was even ‘intercepted’ by the American secret police, the FBI.
The word work-democracy gained a permanent footing in the circles of the entirely informal sex-economists and vegeto-therapists. The word began a life of its own. It was used more and more frequently; one spoke of work-democratic institutions, ‘work-family’, etc., and one began to think about these things in a serious way. In the middle of the chaos of war, a letter arrived from an occupied European country; in this letter, a sex-economist wrote that the pamphlet had been translated and was ready for immediate circulation as soon as circumstances allowed.
In the course of the last four years of the war, I delved into the conceptual content of work-democracy. I made an effort to comprehend and elaborate on the content of the word. In this effort I relied upon discussions which I had had in Norway with friends of various occupations. The more I immersed myself in this concept, the more clearly I saw its outlines, the more completely and forcefully I perceived its substance, and finally I had a picture that coincided perfectly with a large number of neglected but decisive sociological facts.
As well as I can, I want to describe what this picture purports. I have no intention of engaging in any kind of propaganda for it. Nor do I have the intention of engaging in time-consuming debates about it.
What follows is what I have come to understand by natural work-democracy.
A medical student who wants to be admitted to the medical profession must offer satisfactory proof of his practical and theoretical knowledge of medicine. On the other hand, a politician who takes it upon himself to determine the fate, not of hundreds, as the medical student, but of millions of working men and women, is not required in our society to prove his qualifications and knowledge.
It is this circumstance that seems to be one of the essential causes of the social tragedy that has pockmarked the society of human animals for thousands of years with individual acute outbreaks. Let us pursue this briefly described contradiction as well and as far as we can.
The man who performs practical work in any fields whatever, whether he comes from a rich or poor family, has to go through a definite schooling. He is not elected by’ the people’. Experienced workers whose skills have been tested over a long period must determine in a more or less thorough way whether the apprentice in their field is qualified to perform his or her job professionally. This is the demand, even if it often runs ahead of the facts. It gives the direction in any event.
In America, this demand has been carried to such an extreme that a salesgirl in a department store has to have a university education. As exaggerated and as socially unjust as this demand may be, it shows clearly just how much social pressure is exerted on the simplest work. Every shoemaker, cabinet-maker, turner, mechanic, electrician, stone mason, construction worker, etc., has to fulfil strict requirements.
A politician, on the other hand, is free of any such demands. One need merely possess a good dose of cunning, neurotic ambition and will to power, coupled with brutality, in order to take over the highest positions of human society when suitable chaotic social conditions arise. In the past twenty-five years we have witnessed how a mediocre journalist was capable of brutalizing the fifty-million-strong Italian nation and finally reducing it to a state of misery.
For twenty-two years there was a great fuss about nothing, coupled with much blood and thunder, until one day the hubbub faded out without a flourish. And one was overcome by the feeling: And all to no avail! What remained of this great tumult, which had made the world hold its breath and had torn many nations out of their accustomed life? Nothing - not a single, permanent thought; not a single, useful institution; not even a fond memory.
Facts such as this show more clearly than anything else the social irrationalism that periodically brings our life to the brink of the abyss. A young house painter who fails miserably in his choice of profession is capable, also for a period of twenty years, of having himself talked about the world over, without having 1 accomplished a single, useful, objective, practical piece of work. In this case, also, it is a tremendous noise that one day quietly fades away into an ‘all to no avail’. The world of work continues on its calm, quiet, vitally necessary course. Of the great tumult, nothing remains but a chapter in falsely oriented history books, which are only a burden to our children.
If one take the trouble to ferret them out, one will find unprecedented consequences for practical social life in this clear-cut antipathy between work and politics, this antipathy that is intelligible to everyone and that every working man and woman has long since been aware of. First and foremost, these consequences relate to the system of political parties that determines the ideologic and structural formation of the human animal everywhere on this earth. It is not our purpose here to enter into the question of how the present system of political parties developed from the first patriarchal-hierarchal European and Asian systems of government.
What is important here is solely the effect of the system of political parties on the development of society. The reader will have already divined that natural work-democracy is a social system that already exists. It does not have to be established, and it bears the same relationship to the system of political parties as water bears to fire.
The contradiction between work and politics leads us on as follows: The elucidation and elimination of chaotic conditions, whether in a social, animal or dead organism, require lengthy scientific work. Without going into details, let us briefly designate as scientific that man who performs some kind of vitally necessary work that requires the comprehension of facts. In this sense of the word a lathe operator in a factory is scientific, for his product is based on the fruits of his own work and research as well as the work and research of others. Now let us contrast this scientific man with the mystic, including the political ideologist.
Every scientific person, whether he is an educator, lathe operator, technician, physician, or something else, has to fulfil and safeguard the social work process. Socially, he has a very responsible position: He has to prove each one of his assertions in a practical way. He has to work industriously, to think, to seek out new ways of improving his work, to recognize errors. As a researcher he has to examine and refute false theories.
Whenever he succeeds in accomplishing something fundamentally new, he has to contend with human viciousness and fight his way through. He has no need of power, for no motors can be constructed with political power, no sera can be produced with it, no children can be brought up, etc. The working, scientific man lives and operates without weapons.
Compared with the working man and woman, the mystic and political ideologist has an easy social position. No one demands proof for their assertions. They can promise to bring down God from Heaven, to raise the Devil from Hell and to establish paradise on earth from their ministerial buildings, and in all this they know very well that they will not be called to account for fraud. Their wild assertions are protected by the inviolable democratic right of free speech.
If we think about it very carefully, we find that there must be something wrong with the concept of ‘free speech’, when it is possible for a foiled painter to use this right to conquer in a completely legal way and in the course of a few years a position in the world that has never in human history fallen to the share of the great pioneers of science, art, education and technology. It clearly follows from this that our thinking in social matters is catastrophically wrong in a certain area and requires radical correction. On the basis of careful sex-economic clinical investigations, we know that it is the authoritarian upbringing of little children, the teaching them to be fearful and submissive, that secures for the political power monger the slavery and the gullibility of millions of adult industrious men and women.
Let us pursue the contradiction between work and politics in another direction. The following motto always appears on the tide page of the Orgone Institute’s official publication: ‘Love, work and knowledge are the source of human existence. They should also govern it! Without the function of natural love between husband and wife, mother and child, co-workers, etc., without work and without knowledge, human society would fall to pieces overnight.
It is not incumbent upon me as a physician to make allowances for some political ideology or another or for some current diplomatic necessity, no matter how important it may appear. It is my task solely to elucidate important but unknown facts. And it is a fact, however embarrassing it may be, that none of the three basic functions of social life is affected by universal suffrage and the secret ballot, or ever had an effect in the history of parliamentary democracy. On the other hand, political ideologies, which have nothing to do with the functions of natural love, work or knowledge, enjoy unhampered and unlimited access to every kind of social power on the basis of universal suffrage and the party system.
Let me hasten to make it clear that I am and have always been for universal suffrage. This does not alter the firmly established fact that the social institution of universal suffrage of parliamentary democracy in no way coincides with the three basic functions of social existence. It is left to chance whether the basic social functions are safeguarded or damaged by parliamentary vote. There is no stipulation in the legislation of parliamentary democracy that accords love, work and knowledge any kind of prerogative in the regulation of the fate of society. This dichotomy between democratic suffrage and basic social functions has catastrophic repercussions on the basis of social processes.
I want only to mention the many institutions and laws that explicitly hamper these functions. I don’t think that any scientific or political group has ever clearly and sharply pointed out this basic contradiction in a way that would be intelligible to everyone. And yet, it constitutes the core of the bio-social tragedy of the human animal. The system of political parties does not at all fulfil the conditions, tasks and aims of human society. This is clearly and plainly shown by the fact, one of many that a shoemaker cannot simply
decide to be a tailor, a physician to be a mining engineer and a teacher to be a cabinet-maker. On the other hand, a Republican in America can become a Democrat from one day to the next without undergoing any objective change in his thinking; and in Germany before Hitler, a Communist could simply become a Fascist, a Fascist a Communist, a Liberal a Communist or Social Democrat and a Social Democrat a German National or Christian Socialist. Such changes were capable of strengthening or weakening the ideology of the party programme of any of the respective parties; in short, they were capable of deciding the fate of a whole nation in the most unconscionable way.
This clearly shows polities’ irrational nature and its antithesis to work. I do not want to go into the question whether the political parties ever had an objective and rational basis in the social body. It has no relevance here. The political parties of today have nothing concrete to say. The practical and positive events of a society have nothing to do with party boundaries or party ideologies. Something like Roosevelt’s New Deal is a proof of this. So-called party coalitions are makeshifts in default of an objective orientation, a bridging of difficulties without really solving anything. Firmly established realities cannot be mastered with opinions, which are changed as one changes one’s shirt.
These initial steps in the clarification of the concept of work-democracy have already yielded a number of important insights into the social chaos. This obligates us to follow up our train of thought on natural work-democracy. It would be an inexcusable omission not to do so. For no one can foresee where and when human thinking will disclose the answer to the chaos produced by politics. Thus, we shall follow the path we have taken, as one might look for a suitable settlement site in a primeval forest.
Even this attempt to orient oneself in social chaos must be regarded as a piece of practical and rational work. Since natural work-democracy is based on work and not on politics, it is possible that this ‘work on the social organism’ might lead to a practical and applicable result. It would be the first time that work got control of social problems. And this work would be work-democratic, insofar as it might induce other sociologists, economists, psychologists, to work on the social organism. Since this work attacks politics as a principle and as a system, there can be no doubt that it will be countered with political ideologies.
It will be interesting and important to see how work-democratic sociology will stand up in practice. Work-democracy, as far as I understand it, counters political ideologies with the point of view of social function and social development, in short, with facts and possibilities. It does not counter them with another political view. It follows an approach similar to the one followed in the field of morality: Sex-economy deals with the damages caused by compulsive morality, not, as is politically customary, with another kind of morality, but with concrete knowledge and practical data on the natural function of sexuality. In other words, work-democratic socio-economy will have to prove itself in practical life, just as the assertion that steam contains energy is proven by the locomotion of engines. Thus, we have no reason whatever to engage in ideological or political arguments concerning the existence or non-existence of work-democracy, its practical applicability or non-applicability, etc.
The working men and women who think and act in a work-democratic way do not come out against the politician. It is not his fault or his intention that the practical result of his work exposes the illusionary and irrational character of politics. Those who are engaged in practical work, regardless what field they are in, are intensely concerned with practical tasks in the improvement of life. Those who are engaged in practical work are not against one thing or another.
It is only the politician who, having no practical tasks is always against and never for something. Politics in general is characterized by this ‘being against’ one thing or another. That which is productive in a practical way is not accomplished by politicians, but by working men and women, whether it is in accord with the politicians’ ideologies or not. Years of experience have dearly demonstrated that the men and women who perform practical work always come into conflict with the politician. Thus, those who worker living functioning are and operate against politics, whether they want to or not.
The educator is for the objective upbringing of small children; the farmer is for the machines necessary in agriculture; the researcher is for proofs for scientific findings. One can easily satisfy oneself that wherever a working man or woman is against this or that achievement, he or she is not speaking up as a worker, but under the pressure of political or other irrational influences.
It sounds improbable and exaggerated to say that a positive accomplishment of work is never against, but always for something. The reason for this is that our work life is interfused with irrationally motivated expressions of opinion, which are not differentiated from objective evaluations. For instance, the farmer is against the worker and the worker is against the engineer. This or that physician is against this or that drug. It will be said that democratic free speech means that one is ‘for’ and ‘against’. It is my contention, on the other hand, that it was precisely this formalistic and non-objective comprehension of the concept of free speech that was chiefly responsible for the failure of the European democracies. Let us take an example: A physician is against the use of a certain drug. There can be one of two reasons for this:
Either the drug is really harmful and the physician is conscientious. In this case, the manufacturer of the drug did poor work. His work was not crowned with success and, evidently, he was not motivated by strong objective interests to produce an effective and harmless drug. The manufacturer did not have the function of the drug in mind, but was motivated, let us say, by pecuniary interests, i.e., was irrationally motivated. The motive did not suit the purpose. In this case the physician acted in a rational way. He spoke up in the interest of human health, that is to say, he was automatically against a bad drug because he is for health. He acted rationally, for the goal of work and the motive of the expression of opinion are in accord with one another.
Or the drug is a good one and the physician is unscrupulous. If this physician is against a good drug, his action is not motivated by an interest in human health. Perhaps he has been paid by a rival firm to advertise a different drug. He does not fulfil his work function as a physician; the motive for the expression of his opinion has no more to do with its content than it has to do with any work function. The physician speaks out against the drug because secretly he is tot profit and not for health. But profiteering is not the purpose of a physician’s work. Hence, he speaks out strongly ‘against’ something and not ‘for’ it.
We can apply this example to any other field of work and any kind of expression of opinion. We can easily satisfy ourselves that it is an inherent part of the rational work process always to be for something. The ‘being against’ something ensues not from the work process itself, but from the fact that there are irrational functions of life. It follows
from this that: In terms of its nature, every rational work process is spontaneously against irrational functions of life.
The attentive reader who is not unfamiliar with the ways of the world will readily agree that this clarification of the concept of free speech invests the democratic movement with a new and better point of view. The principle: What is harmful to the interests of life is poor work, hence not work at all imbues the concept of work-democracy with a rational meaning, a meaning that is lacking in the concept of formal or parliamentary democracy. In formal democracy the farmer is against the worker and the worker is against the engineer because political and not objective interests predominate in the social organization. If responsibility is shifted from the politician, not to the working men and women, but to work, then cooperation between farmer and worker automatically takes the place of political opposition.
We shall have to pursue this idea further, for it is of decisive importance. To begin with, we want to dwell upon the question of so-called democratic criticism, which also rests upon the democratic right of free speech.
NOTES ON OBJECTIVE CRITICISM AND IRRATIONAL CAVILLING
The work-democratic way of life insists upon the right of every working man and woman to free discussion and criticism. This demand is justified, indispensable and should be inviolable. If it is not fulfilled, die source of human productivity is easily dried up. Owing to the effects of the general emotional plague, however, ‘discussion’ and ‘criticism’ become more or less grave jeopardise to serious work. We want to illustrate this with an example:
Let us imagine an engineer who is having a difficult time repairing a defective motor. It is a complicated piece of work; the engineer must exercise every bit of his intelligence and energy to master the difficulty. He sacrifices his leisure hours of pleasure and works until late in the night. He grants himself no rest until he has finished his job. After a while an unconcerned man comes along, looks on for a bit, then picks up a stone and smashes the conducting wires. That morning his wife had nagged him at the breakfast table.
Another completely unconcerned man comes along; he derides the engineer. He tells him that he, the engineer, knows nothing about motors, otherwise he would have had it repaired long ago. And just look at how filthy he is - his body is literally covered with sweat and grease. And that isn’t all. He is an immoral man also, for otherwise he would not leave his family at home alone. Having insulted the engineer to his heart’s content, he moves on. That morning he had received a letter from his firm informing him that he is being dismissed from his job as an electrical engineer. He is not a very good worker in his field.
A third totally unconcerned man comes along, spits in the engineer’s face and moves on. His mother-in-law, who has a special talent for torturing people, had just given him a hard time.
The intent of these examples is to illustrate the ‘criticism’ of unconcerned passers-by, who, like highwaymen, wantonly disturb honest work, a piece of work about which they
know nothing, which they do not understand and which does not concern them. These examples are typical of a good portion of what is known as ‘free discussion’ and the ‘right of criticism’ in wide sectors of society. The attacks of the hereditary school of psychiatrists and cancer theoreticians on the, at that time, still-embryonic bion research was of this nature. They were not interested in helping and improving, but merely in wantonly disrupting a difficult job. They of course did not betray their motives. Such ‘criticism’ is harmful and socially dangerous. It is prompted by motives that have nothing to do with the matter being criticized, and it has nothing to do with objective interests.
Genuine discussion and genuine criticism are different. Again we want to illustrate this with an example:
Another engineer passes by the garage where the first engineer is working on the motor. With his wealth of experience in this field, he immediately sees that the first engineer has his hands full. He takes off his jacket, rolls up his sleeves and attempts, first of all, to comprehend any mistakes in his approach. He points out an important place the first engineer had overlooked; they both consider the error that may have been made in the work. He gives the first engineer a hand, discusses and criticizes the work, and helps to do it better. He is not motivated by the nagging of his mother-in-law or his failure in his own profession, but by an objective interest in the success of the work.
The two kinds of criticism described above are often difficult to distinguish from one another. Irrational cavilling is often very cunningly disguised behind sham objectiveness. These two kinds of criticism, which are so different from one another, are usually included under the one concept ‘scientific criticism’.
In the strict objective and scientific sense of the word, only so-called immanent criticism is admissible, that is to say, the person exercising criticism must first fulfil a number of demands before assuming the right to criticize:
He himself must have a complete grasp of the field of work that he criticizes.
He must know this field at least as well as, if not better than, the one whom he criticizes.
He must have an interest in seeing the work succeed - not in seeing it fail. If he is merely intent upon disrupting the work, if he is not motivated by objective interests, then he is a neurotic grumbler, but not a critic.
He has to exercise his criticism from the point of view of the field of work under criticism. He cannot criticize from an alien point of view, i.e., from a point of view that has nothing to do with the field of work. Depth psychology cannot be criticized from the point of view of surface psychology, but surface psychology can be criticized from the point of view of depth psychology. The reason for this is simple. Depth psychology is forced to include surface psychology in its investigations. Hence, it is conversant with it. Surface psychology, on the other hand, is precisely that, surface psychology; it does not look for biologic motives behind psychic phenomena.
We cannot criticize an electric machine from the point of view of a machine that has the function of heating a room. The thermal theory plays a part in the electric machine only insofar as it enables the electrical engineer to prevent the overheating of the electric motor. And in this respect, the helpful suggestions of a thermal theorist are definitely welcomed by the electrical engineer. But it would be ridiculous to blame the electro machine for not being able to heat a room.
It follows from this that sex-economy, which wants to liberate the natural sexuality of children, adolescents and adults from neuroses, perversions and criminality, cannot be criticized from the point of view of anti-sexual moralism, for the moralist wants to suppress and not to liberate the natural sexuality of children and adolescents. A musician cannot criticize a miner, and a physician cannot criticize a geologist.
The sole purpose of these observations on criticism and cavilling has been to alleviate the position of young sex economists and orgone biophysicists towards critics
Copyright © 2022-2025 by Michael Maardt. You are on a33.dk • Contact