Useful Work versus Useless Toil

All four essays originated as lectures. Morris gives a clear and eloquent explanation of his Socialism in the essays "Useful Work versus Useless Toil" and "How I Became a Socialist." The former lays interesting stress on the wastefulness of Capitalism, a useful counterpoint to how capitalist production is often seen as as the most efficient use of resources. The essay also links the hopes of labor to the hope for a Socialist future in a rhetorically useful move. 

"What is the nature of the hope which, when it is present in work, makes it worth doing? 

"It is threefold, I think—hope of rest, hope of product, hope of pleasure in the work itself; and hope of these also in some abundance and of good quality; rest enough and good enough to be worth having; product worth having by one who is neither a fool nor an ascetic; pleasure enough for all of us to be conscious of it while we are at work; not a mere habit, the loss of which we shall feel as a fidgety man feels the loss of the bit of string he fidgets with."

The famous essay "Gothic Architecture" I find thought-provoking, especially in its castigation of the Renaissance as a kind of slavish imitation of the Greeks and Romans and in its praise of Gothic architecture, based on the invention of the arch, as natural and reasonable to a free and equal society. I don't know enough about art history to judge his argument well, but in its outline, as given in this essay, I don't find it entirely persuasive. 

The essay "Lesser Arts," originally titled "The Decorative Arts," is the least interesting one to me, but even here, Morris's insistence on the ethical meaning of aesthetic forms is bracing, as is his advocacy of a back-to-the-crafts approach to revitalizing both the Greater and the Lesser Arts.

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