The final notion involved in this definition is that the labor is performed for the sake of some ulterior object or some useful purpose. Quite aside from the question of whether pleas ureable effort is entitled to the name of labor, it is contended that it must he productive. The distinction was early made between productive and unproductive labor. The Physiocrats, for instance, insisted that only the work of agricul ture was productive, the labors of manufactur ers, merchants and others being sterile. Even Adam Smith thought that the work of serv ants was unproductive. The modern concep tion, however, is that any effort which satisfies a want or creates a utility is productive— that of the actor, the fireman or the judge, as well as that of the farmer, the miner, the cotton spinner or the locomotive engineer. Effort di rected toward the rendering of some intangible or transient pleasure is held to be productive as well as that engaged in extractive industry or in fashioning some durable object. In no case does man create anything; he can never do more than change the form or the place of ma terial things. It is, therefore, as impossible to draw a line of distinction between the labor of those engaged in raising grain and those em ployed in serving bread at the table as it is to make a distinction between manual and men tal effort.
Free and Slave Labor.— Thus far only free labor has been considered, but historically prob ably more of the work of the world has been performed by unfree labor than by free. Slav ery has existed as far back as historical records go into the dim past. Indeed it has been as serted, rather paradoxically, that the institu tion of human slavery marked the greatest step forward that had yet been made in human progress. From an ethical standpoint slavery was certainly an improvement over cannibalism, and from an economic standpoint it marked a great advance because now for the first time there was provided a fund of labor that could be directed to steady and arduous toil. Until this time man had lived by hunting and fishing primarily; but now settled agriculture became possible, permanent homes were established, cattle domesticated and some accumulation of property began. Primitive man did not work willingly and the compulsion of slavery fur nished the training school in which the human race painfully and slowly learned the lessons of labor.
The question has been raised and much de bated as to whether the course of human prog ress has been from a state of original freedom and equality to one of inequality and bondage, or the reverse. The view was formerly widely held that the original tribal organization early gave place to a closer union in the village com munity or mark. Freedom, equality of rank and possessions, and in the case of the mark communal ownership and cultivation of the land characterized these early communities. .As a result of conquest and other forces this origi nal state of freedom gave way to one of in equality, both political and economic, which has persisted to this day. Modern democracy and socialism are simply efforts to restore the original and natural heritage of mankind.
About 1880 however another school developed, in England and France especially, which denied the accuracy of the historical data upon which the mark theory had been built up, and gave a different explanation of the existing economic constitution of society and the position of labor. These writers denied that early societies had enjoyed freedom and communal ownership of the land, but insisted that as far back as his tory can be traced there had always existed a system of primitive serfdom and private property. The evolution of human progress has therefore been from a condition of slavery and inequality to one of increasing freedom and equality of opportunity and possessions. Labor has progressed from bondage to freedom and is ever moving further in the same direction.
Perhaps the best evidence of the growing dignity and importance, as well as the well being of labor, is the esteem in which it has been held by economists. In this respect there has been steady progress. By the Greeks and Romans, if we may accept as typical the utter ances of their leading philosophers, labor was held in low esteem. Artisans belonged to the lowest caste, and labor was held to be degrad ing. Slavery was generally practised and of course .did not help to elevate the status of the free laborer. The later Roman writers, how ever, condemned this institution on economic grounds. The spread- of Christianity led also to moral condemnation, and during the Middle Ages slavery was generally modified into serf dom, according to which the serf was bound to the soil but was personally free. Although the Church taught the equality and brother hood of man, these doctrines did not amelio rate his condition during this period. Men's chief intellectual interests were theological rather than economic, war absorbed the ener gies of the ruling classes, and the primitive methods of agriculture, manufactures and transportation as well as insecurity of life and property prevented the working classes from making any economic advance.
Economic Views.— The Renaissance and the discovery of the New World made far reaching changes in economic institutions and thought which were reflected in the conceptions of labor. By the Mercantilists labor was assigned a position of considerable importance; according to Locke (1690) labor is the almost exclusive source of value, for, he wrote, "it is labour indeed that puts the difference of value on everything." But the Mercantilists after all emphasized trade and money rather than labor. The Physiocrats introduced the distinction between productive and unproduc tive labor; according to them the only produc tive labor was that which added something material to the world's stock of goods. They therefore confined the term to agricultural laborers and the extractive industries; mer chants and manufacturers were unproductive or sterile. Emphasis was laid by them there fore more upon the direction of labor than upon its well-being. Land and the bounty of nature was the real centre of the Physiocratic system.