It is reasonably well known that William Morris hated machinery and the use of machines.
However, this isn’t actually true.
What he disliked was the inappropriate use of machinery. The machine, to Morris, was a tool for the worker and the craftsman to use; to make their life easier and to make their vision deliverable. He didn’t want someone to spend their working days and working life expending muscle power mindlessly, say, sawing a tree trunk into planks. For this ‘donkey work’ Morris thought it an entirely suitable use of a machine and machinery. What he objected to was the human being turned into a machine minder – the machine dictating to the human; the machine being in charge and dehumanising the human; these are the things Morris hated and railed against.
But William Morris went further than this – what he really objected to was the sort of society that the unthinking use of machinery and the resulting industrialization was producing – ‘it is not the machine made of iron and brass I object to; it is the economic machine that treats men and women as inanimate and expendable objects; there to feed this machine, that I object to’ (I paraphrase his thoughts here, rather than directly and precisely quote his words).
As Ray Watkinson, in his book ‘William Morrris as Designer’ (Studio Vista, London, 1976) pointed out Morris’ main objection was to the ends for which the economic system was being put – that is to making profit as the, increasingly, sole point and motivation. ‘The pursuit of profit, not the well-making by modern means of making, he saw to be the dominant force in industry’. And, ‘The real machine-product appeared to him to be simply profit; all other objects that came from it to be incidental by-products…’
This issue, of the pursuit of profit, irrespective to anything useful (or anything at all) being produced allies today to our Privatised Industries, especially the utilities. We can see clearly that the aim of the private water and sewage companies is not to supply water and treat the waste water – it is to make money for the owners and the senior management (usually the very senior management; those at boardroom level) – it is not to provide a service; the successful and efficient delivery of a service or produce which provides a surplus (or profit) to be fairly distributed to the owners, management, staff and employees.
The sole aim is to make a profit – full stop! And if this can be done without delivering any service whatsoever so much the better. In fact this fantasy, this dream, of profit without effort has been very nearly achieved; with train companies distributing dividends and bonuses even when they are incapable of delivering a reliable service; and the water companies distribute dividends whilst pumping untreated sewage into our rivers and oceans. This is the true ‘something for nothing society’; the ultimate manifestation of neoliberal economics.
This profit being the sole focus is also to be seen in the housing development industry. We are having homes built that are badly built and/or not fit for purpose. A recent survey found that most of the UK public believe that new homes are of poorer quality construction and workmanship than old homes. Imagine that being said of cars – that a new car is of worse quality and less reliable than cars of the 1970s!
We have seen flats being built in London which are too small to live in and when this was pointed out the response was -‘well no one will actually live here: they are for overseas owners to store their money in; in a safe word city’.
And this poor quality is also repeated in the actual places in which the new homes are being built and in their surroundings. A few years ago a study by academics found that many new housing developments (the majority?) failed to reach quality standards and failed to deliver sustainable neighbourhoods and places.(I believe this study involved Just Space and University College London, amongst others – when I find a proper reference for this study, the launch of which I attended, I will up date this blog with the references).
I believe, from my experience, that this is the reason local communities object to new developments, and fight them the best they can through the Planning System. They can see (or at least feel) that the pursuit of profit is the role aim of many developers, rather than the design and delivery of high quality buildings and places from which profit is the by-product – for a job well done. And too often communities are right in their assumptions and cannot be blamed for their ‘NIMBYISM’.
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