Labor and Art

A Fragment on William Morris's Utopian Socialism, and beyond

  [Contribution to the Reimagining Society Project hosted by ZCommunications]

After a morning bath, Dick, the man whose business is ‘ferrying and giving people casts about the water [the river Thames in London],' offers the narrator of News from Nowhere, William Guest, to be his guide in the new world. Guest hesitates for a moment: ‘I fear,' he says, ‘I shall be taking you away from your work.' But Dick doesn't think so. ‘Don't trouble about that,' Dick replies, ‘it will give me an opportunity of doing a good turn to a friend of mine who wants to take my work here. He is a weaver from Yorkshire, who has rather overdone himself between his weaving and his mathematics, both indoor work, you see; and being a great friend of mine, he naturally came to me to get him some outdoor work. If you think you can put up with me, pray take me as your guide.' This conversation, found in chapter 2 of William Morris's utopian novel News from Nowhere (1890), shows work as joyful and sensuous labor. Labor isn't any longer a means of life but it has become life's prime want. I think, it is important to realize how labor is placed here at the center of human praxis and not a word is said about its outcome. In fact, unequal forms of labor are exchanged because the way how humans conceive labor has overcome the capitalist regime of value. This is my topic here.

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