Occupations, Workload,
and Productivity- UTOPIA
As mentioned earlier, all people are engaged
in farm work. They are taught theories of farming in school, and practical
skills in the field.
Other than farm work, every person, woman and
man, has a specific occupation. The most common trades are spinning and
weaving, masonry, blacksmithing, and carpentry. Women, because they are less
strong, are employed in trades that do not demand heavy work. Young boys
usually learn their trade through apprenticeship to their fathers, but if a boy
shows a particular desire or aptitude for a different career, arrangements are
made. People are allowed to apprentice and learn more than one trade, and then
practice whichever they prefer, unless the city has a particular need for one
rather than the other. Nobody is allowed to lounge while on the job. Those few
who do are punished.
However, unlike European societies, working
people in Utopia are not forced to toil for unconscionable hours each day. The
Utopian day is broken into twenty-four hours; Utopians only work for six hours
per day, three before lunch and three after. Utopians also sleep on average
about eight hours a day. This leaves them with a great deal of free time, which
they are free to do with as they will, as long as they do not spend it in
debauchery or idleness. Most people use their free time to engage in
intellectual pursuits. They also involve themselves in music, gardening, and
physical activity. Those people who demonstrate a keen love and aptitude for
intellectual pursuits are identified early and, as long as they are diligent in
their studies, they are exempt from physical labor. If a laborer should
demonstrate some great skill in his recreational intellectual efforts, he too
can become exempt from is work if he desires.
Though the Utopians work such short hours they
do not suffer from any lack of productivity. Though Europeans work far longer
hours, European populations are also filled with a far larger percentage of
people who do no productive work at all, including most women, much of the
clergy, the rich gentlemen and nobles and all of their retainers, and all of
the beggars. Also, because the Utopians diligently maintain everything they
build, they have to expend far less energy undertaking rebuilding projects than
Europeans, who instead follow a cycle of build, watch degenerate, rebuild.
Because of the general lack of Utopian vanity and an understanding of the value
of utility over style, the goods Utopians use are also far less difficult to
produce. All of these factors combine so that though the Utopian workday is
relatively short, Utopian society is far more productive than European states,
in terms of both necessities and modest luxuries.
Commentary
The degree of choice Utopians can exercise in
choosing their vocation likely strikes modern readers as incredibly small.
Compared to Europeans of the sixteenth century, however, the range is not small
at all. True, a European noble was freer to do what he would--from composing
poetry to lying around eating figs--than any Utopian. But the European lower
classes had absolutely no mobility in terms of job. If a peasant was born to
agricultural parents, he had little choice but to work the land as well. The
fact that Utopia allowed all of its citizens to pursue careers purely on the
basis of interest was a novel idea.
Hythloday also explains why More's
market-based economies are not vastly more productive than Utopia's non-market,
communal economy. Whereas one particular individual in a marke- based economy
who works incredibly long hours in order to beat out his competition is quite
certainly more productive than the average Utopian worker, for every one of the
productive people in a market-based economy, Hythloday explains that there are
innumerable people from nobles to beggars who make no productive contribution.
In contrast, no one in Utopia is phenomenally productive, but everyone is
fairly productive. More's comment that in a communal society no one would feel
the compunction to work for the simple reason that they would be fed by the
work of others is answered in the Utopian law punishing all laziness and
lounging on the job. However, again, such a law seems to imply a repression
that most modern readers might find unpleasant. In acknowledging the need for such
a law Utopian society admits to the flawed nature of man. It is not, then, that
More's criticism of communal property is wrong, but rather that it can be
overcome through the proper structuring of society. Utopia is not ideal because
its people are perfect, but rather because its laws make it so that Utopian
citizens must act perfectly despite their inherent failings as humans.
Because Utopian society is so productive its citizens have a
lot of free time. Again, a generally cynical understanding of human nature is
betrayed in the laws outlawing idleness or debauchery, but this cynicism has
the positive effect of pushing Utopians into intellectual or athletic pursuits.
The process through which intellectuals are uncovered depends only on
individual merit, a remarkable idea in an age dominated by privilege and
birthright.
Bibliography
Sir
Thomas. Utopia. David Wootton, ed. Hackett Publishing Company,
Cambridge, England, 1999.
Social Plugin