1932.08 把你的丈夫放在厨房里

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Put Your Husband in the Kitchen
“I am tempted to think that the perplexed businessman might discover a possible solution of his troubles if he would just spend a few days in his wife's kitchen.”

By Helen Keller

Library of Congress
AUGUST 1932 ISSUE
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I.
In my childhood, even before my education had been begun, I was allowed to take part in the elaborate ritual which, in those days, marked the making of a fruitcake at Christmas time. Although I was blind, deaf, and speechless, the thrill of the occasion communicated itself to me. There were all sorts of pungent and fragrant ingredients to collect and prepare — orange and lemon peel, citron, nuts (which had to be cracked), apples, currants, raisins (which had to be seeded), and a host of other things. The family encouraged me to assist in these preparations, for they discovered that this was one means of keeping me, at least temporarily, out of mischief; and I, for my part, was just as eager to help, because I was always permitted to claim my wages in raisins.

All in all, this concoction of a fruitcake was a long and complicated task. If there had been some oversight in the preliminary planning and an important ingredient was missing, someone had to make a trip to town to fetch it. While the mixing process was being carefully attended to, a roaring fire was built in the stove. At last, when everything was ready and the fire was giving off just the right degree of heat, the great pan was placed reverently in the oven. The climax of the ritual was now at hand. The temperature had to be maintained for several hours with the utmost precision, and everybody had to walk about on tiptoe lest some unguarded step shake the floor and cause the precious batter, swelling with the heat, to fall. In the end, if all went well, we were rewarded with a very miracle of a fruitcake, without which Christmas would not have been Christmas.


To-day this ritual, so delightful to children, so exacting to the mothers who superintended it, is fast becoming a lost art. The modern housewife has only to go to her compact kitchen cabinet to assemble the ready-prepared ingredients, even to shelled nuts. If one should be lacking, she telephones to the corner grocery. The cake almost bakes itself in an automatically regulated gas stove, while the lady of the house goes about her other duties. Or perhaps she achieves her fruitcake by buying it in a tin container at her grocer’s. Whether she bakes it or buys it, her labor in either case is simple and quick compared to what it was even a few years ago.

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The same thing may be said of almost every other phase of household work. Our grandmothers had to perform a tremendous amount of dreary drudgery in managing their homes. They were kept busy from morning till night, for those were the days when a woman’s work was never done. Since then, however, the machine age has come upon us, transforming the home no less surely than the factory. The housewife of to-day finds that many heavy responsibilities which she would have had to assume in any other age, such as the baking of bread and the weaving of cloth) have been lifted from her, and scores of other tasks which still remain in her province have been so simplified that they can now be performed with a great saving of time and effort. Electricity and gas and innumerable mechanical devices have reduced household labor to a fraction of its former burden. In consequence, the modern woman enjoys a degree of leisure which her grandmother could hardly have dared to dream of.

Whether women are using their newfound leisure to its full advantage is a debatable question, and one which I shall not attempt to discuss here. The point that I want to emphasize is that they have it — and they have it because of these countless machines and clever contrivances which have been invented to save them time and labor.

Video: “Put Your Husband in the Kitchen”: An Animated Excerpt

This, of course, is a very familiar observation, and I claim no credit for originality in mentioning it. But recently, as I was turning over in my mind the tragic muddle of present economic conditions, it suddenly occurred to me that this commonplace is not nearly as hackneyed as it may seem. Few of us seem to have grasped the significance of this new leisureliness which has come to grace our households. As a matter of plain fact, what women have done with labor-saving machinery in the home is exactly the reverse of what men have done with it in their factories and offices. The captain of industry seizes upon improved tools as means to increase production, and now he finds the channels of trade clogged with more goods than can be sold; his wife uses them to produce leisure, of which she can never have too much.

The average woman is not very familiar with the complexities of economics, but it seems to me that she has ordered her household economy upon a more solid basis than that upon which men have arranged the affairs of their larger world. In industry, the amazing increase in the use of labor-saving machinery has brought about overproduction, unemployment, and widespread suffering. Either women are wiser, or they have a sounder instinct for economics. At any rate, they use labor-saving devices for the heretical purpose of saving labor, and in doing so they have, I think, demonstrated in their homes a practical object lesson in economics which their husbands would do well to master. While theorists are still searching for the causes of the depression, and politicians remain at loggerheads in their effort to conjure up remedies, I am tempted to think that the perplexed businessman might discover a possible solution of his troubles if he would just spend a few days in his wife’s kitchen.

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Let us see what would happen if he did.

II.
Mr. Jones, let us say, is a modern captain of industry. Mrs. Jones is an intelligent woman who knows more than the average about economics, and has the knack of seeing things through to their essentials. She had often discussed business problems with her husband, and had endeavored without success to win him to her point of view. At last she decided to try an experiment. She persuaded her husband that he owed it to humanity to demonstrate the correctness of his ideas by applying them to the home — the one field which men had not yet touched with their organizing genius. Mr. Jones accepted the challenge and agreed to serve for a term as cook, maid, and household manager. He promised to see what improvements he could effect by directing all domestic activities in precisely the same way that he conducted his own business.

Mr. Jones had grown up on a farm. The chores that fell to his lot as a boy made him familiar with the drudgery of household work in former days. Although he was vaguely aware that the home had kept pace with the mechanical age, he did not know what a startling revolution had taken place in the economy of the household until he surveyed his wife’s model kitchen, with its gas range, its dishwashing machine, its electric mixer, and its various other labor-saving appliances. He investigated the interior of the compact kitchen cabinet, containing all sorts of prepared foods. He was particularly impressed by the special cake flour and the shelled nuts.

‘Ah, the wonders of science and modern efficiency!’ he said to himself. ‘I remember the fine nut cakes my mother used to make. What a job it was in those days! But now, with all these prepared ingredients, with the electric mixer and the automatically regulated gas range, I ought to be able to make ten cakes in less time and with less trouble than my mother required to make one in her primitive household.’

So, true to the ideas which had made him a captain of industry, Mr. Jones proceeded to transform potential power into actuality. When the family assembled at the dinner table that evening, the new household manager could hardly restrain his enthusiasm. Laughingly, he said to his wife: ‘See now, Mary, what I have done. Ten cakes. Ten! When you were running the house we had only one, or two at most. Ah, the logical, orderly, efficient brain of a man is needed even in the kitchen, that sacred province of woman. In one day I have revolutionized the business of cooking, and have put it on a sound basis.’

The cakes were good, and the family ate almost a whole one with relish. They were persuaded to finish it. But there were still nine left. By good salesmanship the industrialist-turned-cook induced the family to eat another, which they did to please him, but they had no relish for it. At this point Mr. Jones found himself confronted with the same problem which he had to face every day in his business — he would have to sell more. Inventory would have to be reduced, unit costs slashed. That could be done only by stimulating demand and increasing consumption. So he employed the cash rebate system, offering small William a dime to place his order for a large section of the third cake. William saw that it was a consumer’s market; he knew that such wonders are unnatural and impermanent, and could not resist stocking up. In the end, by using every known trick of the salesman’s art, Mr. Jones coaxed, wheedled, and bribed the family to dispose of the third cake. By this time everybody had arrived at a stage of acute discomfort and complete indifference to further entreaties, and he recognized the symptoms of a saturated market.

That night the family physician kept busy ministering to varying degrees of indigestion from mild to acute. The care with which Mrs. Jones had nurtured the family stood them in good stead, however, and all were fairly well recovered by morning.

At breakfast Mrs. Jones said to her husband: ‘Of course you realize the doctor’s fees will have to come out of your budget. It was all your fault.’

‘But I have no reserves set for that,’ replied Mr. Jones. ‘You know that before we changed places I always paid the doctor. His bill shouldn’t be charged against the household budget.’

‘Just the same,’ said Mrs. Jones, ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to add it to your production costs. Then next time you’ll know better than to glut the market.’

For once Mr. Jones had nothing to say, and his wife continued: ‘Fortunately, we shall not want any more cake for a long time to come. But when we do, you can bake ten, if you must, and then throw away nine. You can’t object to that. I understand that such methods are common in your economic world. “Maintaining the market,” — isn’t that what you call it? It won’t be the first time food has been destroyed to maintain the market. And, of course, you manufacturers are constantly producing goods that go to waste because of lack of demand. So I shouldn’t dare suggest that you bake only one cake merely because that is all we need. That would be heresy. It would be inefficient. It would be criminal failure to take advantage of “plant capacity.” The gas stove will easily hold ten cakes, and the same gas that will bake one will bake the others too. The electric mixer also represents an investment. You should not let it stand idle, for the overhead will ruin us. So go ahead with your plans, John. I just know you are going to do remarkable things in increasing and cutting unit costs — but don’t forget to dispose of your surplus.’

‘Getting sarcastic, aren’t you?’ replied Mr. Jones. ‘Well, perhaps I did make a mistake. Anyway, let’s forget want to be helpful, tell me do with these seven cakes from yesterday. It seems a pity to throw them away.’

Mrs. Jones was helpful. She took the remaining cakes in her car and distributed them among her friends. She knew that it would not be long before her friends would bring her a few glasses of jelly or some other homemade delicacy in return.

Mr. Jones did not like his wife’s solution of the problem, but he was not in a position to protest. Such friendly bartering of goods struck him as very primitive, a reversion to the economic methods of savage tribes. He thought of economics in terms of money, vast organizations, complicated financial structures, stocks and bonds, banking and credits, and a hundred and one other intricate devices. All these he contemplated with pride, as evidence of the lofty plane upon which our civilization moves. But in this imposing forest he lost sight of the trees. He forgot that the sole purpose of any economic system is to facilitate the manufacture and exchange of the necessities and luxuries of life, in order that life may be made easier and finer. Like many another captains of industry, he had come to consider business, not as a means toward this end, but as an end in itself. No wonder he was having difficulty accommodating himself to the elementary principles of household economy, the sole purpose of which is to promote the welfare and happiness of the family.


III.
When Mrs. Jones returned from her little tour of barter, her husband was busy with the vacuum cleaner and was putting the finishing touches on the living-room rug.

‘Why,’ she cried, ‘you’ve practically completed the cleaning! What will you do then? With a broom it would have taken you four times as long. Here you’ve used the vacuum cleaner only a few minutes, and you’re almost through. Then the machine will have to lie idle until to-morrow. Heavens, you could have cleaned a house twice as large! I suppose there is really nothing for us to do but buy a larger house. It is really a shame to waste all the time that is saved by this electric sweeper. Then there is the investment in the machine; you can’t afford to let it stand idle. That is not efficiency. Yes, I can see that the vacuum cleaner will have to give a better account of itself in future. It must be used more, and the only way to make sure of that is to get a larger house.’

‘Have you gone completely out of your senses?’ asked the astonished Mr. Jones.

‘Not at all,’ replied his wife. ‘I’m just beginning to understand your way of looking at things. We must go in for “plant expansion” — isn’t that what you business men call it? We must realize the productive potentialities of our vacuum cleaner. It cries out for new carpets to sweep, and of course the new house will need lots of new rugs. Just think, John! We shall immediately create a vast, untouched market for the services of our electric sweeper. How foolish I have been all these years! How inefficient! Why, that silly old vacuum cleaner has been in the closet, for years, idle practically all of the time except for a few minutes a day, and I never realized until now how wasteful it was.’


‘Please, Mary, don’t be ridiculous,’ Mr. Jones snapped.

‘Oh, was I being ridiculous? Why, I thought I was following your business logic. Have you forgotten the time, two years ago, when your foreman invented that labor-saving device which made it possible for a man to tend two machines instead of one? You expanded the plant, put in twice as many machines, and doubled production. You said then that it wouldn’t be long before I could have a new car and a new fur coat and all sorts of things, because profits would be more than doubled. Production was doubled, just as you planned, but at the end of the year you had half of the goods in the warehouse and you closed the factory while the machines and the new plant “ate their heads off,” as you so quaintly put it.‘

Mrs. Jones smiled sweetly, but Mr. Jones stammered and rushed away to his new sanctum — the kitchen.

Early that afternoon when Mrs. Jones came downstairs on her way to a meeting of her church club, she found her husband seated before the living room fireplace smoking a fragrant cigar and contentedly immersed in a book. He looked up guiltily as she entered.

‘Is something wrong, John?’ she asked. ‘It isn’t at all like you to be wasting time in this fashion. Surely you don’t sit in your office and read a book in the middle of the afternoon! Even when you have nothing to do, you at least try to appear busy.’

‘I won’t need to start dinner for another hour,’ Mr. Jones explained, ‘and everything else has been attended to.’

‘Have you finished the luncheon dishes? Yes, I suppose you have. It takes very little time with the new dishwasher. But, really, I don’t know how to suggest making efficient use of the time you save. I don’t know how to provide more raw material for a machine which transforms soiled dishes into clean ones. I hope you won’t be driven to the extremity of having to invent a dish-soiling machine so that the dishwasher may be kept operating at capacity.’

Mr. Jones’s cigar turned bitter in his mouth and he lost interest in his book, but his wife hurried out the door and went her way.

IV
When Mrs. Jones returned from her club meeting she brought news cheer her husband. The women of the church were to give a large charity dinner, and Mr. Jones saw in this an opportunity to demonstrate his methods of efficiency, organization, mass production in a real test. He sprang to the telephone and immediately began placing orders for hams and chickens, jellies and pickles, and scores of other things that would be needed to feed the hundred people who were to be invited.

That evening Mrs. Smith came in to talk over arrangements for the dinner, but Mrs. Jones referred the embarrassed caller to the new director of cuisine and household economics. Mr. Jones was pleased to have this chance to spread his gospel of efficiency, and he launched at once upon a technical outline of his plans for preparing the whole affair according to the most improved factory methods.

‘I am sure,’ he concluded, ‘that by proper organization and mass production I can bring the unit cost per dinner down to a record minimum. I think I can guarantee that the cash contribution from each member of the club will be smaller than has ever before been possible.’

Mrs. Smith interrupted him. ‘But, Mr. Jones,’ she said, ‘your proposal would upset all our arrangements. You see, each of our members has her own specialty to supply. Every summer when I put up jelly, for example, I always set aside a few extra jars for the church dinner. Mrs. Doe does the same with chowchow and pickles. Mrs. Roe supplies chickens from her own barnyard, and Mrs. Franklin furnishes potatoes from her farm. Very little actual money goes into the dinner. Each of us donates what she is best equipped to give.’

‘You see, John,’ spoke up Mrs. Jones with an indulgent smile, ‘none of us tries to capture the whole dinner market. We plan and cooperate. We don’t go about it as you manufacturers do when a new field is opened up, and every manufacturer sets out to capture the market in toto. If we did that, we should find ourselves spreading a dinner for a thousand people instead of a hundred. Mrs. Roe might make a full supply of potato salad, while Mrs. Doe, convinced that her own potato salad was far better, might make another full supply and place it in competition with Mrs. Roe’s product. Then we should have overproduction, and all of us would lose by it. We avoid this by estimating our market as closely as possible, and we plan and cooperate to supply the demand. I suppose, John, that this will strike you as very primitive indeed, but somehow it seems to accomplish our purpose with a minimum of waste.’

In the end Mr. Jones had nothing for it but to sneak away to the telephone and cancel the orders he had placed.

Thereafter he seemed a much chastened man. He did not again make himself the butt of his wife’s irony by producing more things than his family could use, just to demonstrate the efficiency of his household machinery. In a few days he took to spending an occasional afternoon at his club. He began playing golf, and devoted many of his leisure hours to exploring his rather large library, which had hitherto been merely an unused collection of books. He found himself becoming interested in all sorts of fascinating subjects. He was really enjoying himself immensely, although he had a guilty look on his face whenever Mrs. Jones caught him at any of these diversions during working hours.

One day she said to him, ‘Perhaps you can see now, John, that the purpose of labor-saving devices is really to save labor, so that more time can be devoted to pleasant and stimulating living.’

Not long after this, Mr. Jones decided that his business again required his attention. His wife is convinced that he returned to his office with a few elementary but enlightening lessons in economics well mastered.


V.
No one, of course, would act as foolishly in the realm of household economics as did this mythical Mr. Jones, but there are many Mr. Joneses who have acted no less foolishly in their own sphere of large-scale industry, expanding plants and piling up goods with complete disregard of market demand. It may be argued that the parallel I have drawn is not a fair one because the family unit is so small and static that its requirements can be easily gauged, while there is no element of competition in supplying these requirements. But the nation, after all, is only the sum of these small units, and with proper cooperation it should not be impossible to estimate, within certain limits, the amount of goods the nation needs.

Here, of course, arises the question of whether we are at present suffering from overproduction or underconsumption — the question, in short, of purchasing power. This is a large subject which I do not have space to deal with in this article, but I hope to write about it some other time. The only point I want to make here is this: that it is about time for us to begin using our labor-saving machinery actually to save labor instead of using it to flood the nation haphazardly with surplus goods which clog the channels of trade. That will presuppose, to be sure, some cooperative effort to determine the needs of the people and to produce accordingly.


In the allegory of Mr. Jones, perhaps Mrs. Jones came off better than she should. She has obtained leisure, certainly, but it is doubtful whether the hundreds of thousands of Mrs. Joneses throughout the land are making the best use of the new wealth of hours which the labor-saving devices in their homes have made possible. But at least the opportunity is there. Women have won the first skirmish, whereas in the industrial world — the world of men — the machine is battering at the very livelihood of our beleaguered people. If we are to win this larger battle, we must adopt a new collective view of the machine and the complex economic structure which has been erected upon it.

I am convinced that the machine has taken something out of life. We have paid, and are still paying, a great price for the benefits it has given us. But the fault lies with us. We have not used it properly. If the progress of the mechanical age should suddenly cease now, I should say that its disadvantages had outweighed its benefits. But further developments are certain to come. We cannot now throw the machine overboard. It is with us to stay, and our task is to turn it to our proper need. In the machine, rightly controlled, lies the hope of reducing human drudgery to the minimum — not merely that we may be free of drudgery, but that every individual may have the opportunity for a happy life, for a leisure which, under wise guidance, may lead to mental and spiritual growth.


I do not set myself up as an economist, but from my detached position I have tried to examine the whole problem from a humanitarian and common-sense point of view. It evident to me, as it must be to thinking people, that the manufacture and exchange of goods constitute the preponderant influences in modern life. That is a false emphasis. Now, at I we have an opportunity gradually to shift that emphasis by using laborsaving machinery for its ostensible purpose of saving labor. This will mean a reduction in the hours of toil for the great masses of the people. The trend is already in that direction, as an emergency measure, and I am convinced that the pressure toward this end will outlast the emergency, for it is a logical result of the flowering of the mechanical age. This new orientation is by no means impossible. If I thought it were, I should lose my faith in humanity.

After all, is it too much to expect that our ingenuity can reorganize our economic system to take advantage of the machines which we have created? It is largely up to the men — the statesmen and the captains of industry; and, if they are unable to accomplish the task, we women shall have to send them into the kitchen for a few lessons in common-sense economics.




把你的丈夫放在厨房里
"我想，如果困惑的商人能在他妻子的厨房里呆上几天，他可能会发现一个可能解决他的麻烦的办法。"

作者：海伦-凯勒

美国国会图书馆
1932年8月号
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I.
在我的童年时代，甚至在我开始接受教育之前，我就被允许参加精心制作的仪式，在那些日子里，这种仪式标志着在圣诞节时制作水果蛋糕。虽然我当时又瞎又聋，而且无话可说，但这种激动人心的场面还是让我感受到了。要收集和准备各种辛辣芳香的材料--橙皮和柠檬皮、香橼、坚果（必须敲碎）、苹果、醋栗、葡萄干（必须去籽），以及其他许多东西。家里人鼓励我协助这些准备工作，因为他们发现这是一种让我至少暂时不做坏事的手段；而我也同样渴望帮忙，因为我总是被允许用葡萄干来领工资。

总而言之，这种水果蛋糕的调制是一项漫长而复杂的任务。如果在初步计划中出现了一些疏忽，缺少一种重要的成分，就必须有人到镇上去取它。当搅拌过程被小心翼翼地处理时，炉子里就会生出熊熊大火。最后，当一切准备就绪，火苗发出恰到好处的热度时，大锅被恭敬地放进烤箱。仪式的高潮现在就在眼前。温度必须以最精确的方式保持几个小时，每个人都必须踮起脚尖走动，以免一些不设防的脚步摇晃地板，导致因高温而膨胀的珍贵面糊掉落。最后，如果一切顺利，我们会得到一个非常神奇的水果蛋糕，没有它，圣诞节就不是圣诞节了。


今天，这种对孩子们来说非常愉快，对监督它的母亲来说非常严格的仪式，正迅速成为一种失传的艺术。现代家庭主妇只需到她小巧的厨房柜子里去收集现成的材料，甚至是去壳的坚果。如果缺少一种，她就打电话到街角的杂货店去买。蛋糕几乎是在一个自动调节的煤气炉里自己烤出来的，而女主人则去做她的其他工作。或者她通过在杂货店买一个锡制容器来实现她的水果蛋糕。无论她是烤还是买，与几年前相比，她的劳动都是简单而快速的。

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几乎所有其他阶段的家务工作都可以说是如此。我们的祖母们在管理她们的家时，不得不从事大量沉闷的苦差事。她们从早到晚都在忙碌，因为在那些日子里，女人的工作永远不会完成。然而，从那时起，机器时代已经来临，对家庭的改造不亚于对工厂的改造。今天的家庭主妇发现，许多她在其他时代不得不承担的重任，如烤面包和织布）已经从她身上解脱出来，而其他几十项仍然属于她的工作已经被简化，现在可以大大节省时间和精力。电力和煤气以及无数的机械设备已经将家庭劳动减少到以前的一小部分。因此，现代妇女享有的休闲程度是她祖母几乎不敢想象的。

妇女是否充分利用了她们新发现的闲暇，这是一个值得商榷的问题，我不打算在这里讨论这个问题。我想强调的一点是，她们拥有这种闲暇--她们拥有这种闲暇是因为有无数的机器和聪明的装置被发明出来，以节省她们的时间和劳动。

视频。"把你的丈夫放在厨房里"。动画节选

当然，这是一个非常熟悉的观点，我不要求在提到它时有任何原创性。但是最近，当我在脑海中翻阅目前经济状况的悲剧性混乱时，我突然想到，这个常识并不像它看起来那样老套。我们中似乎很少有人理解这种新的休闲方式的意义，这种方式已经成为我们家庭的一部分。事实上，妇女在家庭中使用省力机器的做法与男人在工厂和办公室使用机器的做法正好相反。工业界的领袖抓住改进的工具作为提高产量的手段，现在他发现贸易渠道被多得卖不出去的货物所堵塞；他的妻子用它们来生产休闲，而她永远不会有太多的休闲。

普通妇女对经济学的复杂性并不十分熟悉，但在我看来，她把家庭经济安排在一个比男人安排其大世界事务的基础上更坚实的基础。在工业方面，节省劳动力的机器使用量的惊人增长带来了生产过剩、失业和广泛的痛苦。要么女人更聪明，要么她们有更健全的经济本能。不管怎么说，她们使用省力设备的目的是为了节省劳动力，而且我认为，她们这样做是在家里展示了一个实用的经济学实物课程，她们的丈夫最好能够掌握。当理论家们仍在寻找经济萧条的原因，政治家们仍在努力想出补救办法时，我想，如果困惑的商人能在他妻子的厨房里呆上几天，他可能会发现一个可能解决他的麻烦。

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让我们看看如果他这样做会发生什么。

二。
让我们说，琼斯先生是一位现代工业的船长。琼斯夫人是个聪明的女人，她比一般人更了解经济，而且有看透事情本质的本领。她经常与她的丈夫讨论商业问题，并努力争取他接受她的观点，但没有成功。最后，她决定试一试。她劝说丈夫，他有责任把他的想法应用到家庭中去，以证明他的想法的正确性--这是一个男人还没有用他们的组织天才触及的领域。琼斯先生接受了这个挑战，并同意在一个任期内担任厨师、女仆和家庭管理员。他承诺，通过以与他处理自己的业务相同的方式指导所有的家务活动，他可以实现哪些改进。

琼斯先生是在一个农场长大的。他小时候的家务事使他熟悉了以前家务劳动的艰辛。虽然他隐约意识到家庭已经跟上了机械时代的步伐，但他不知道在家庭经济方面发生了什么惊人的革命，直到他考察了他妻子的模型厨房，里面有煤气灶、洗碗机、电动搅拌器和其他各种省力设备。他调查了紧凑型厨柜的内部，里面有各种准备好的食物。他对特殊的蛋糕粉和带壳坚果印象特别深刻。

'啊，科学和现代效率的奇迹！'他对自己说。'我记得我母亲曾经做过的精美的坚果蛋糕。在那些日子里，这是一项多么艰巨的工作啊！但现在，有了所有这些准备好的材料，我们就可以做了。但是现在，有了所有这些准备好的原料，有了电动搅拌器和自动调节的煤气灶，我应该能够在更短的时间内做出十个蛋糕，而且比我母亲在她的原始家庭中做一个蛋糕所需的麻烦更少。

因此，琼斯先生忠实于使他成为工业队长的想法，着手将潜在的力量转化为现实。当天晚上一家人聚集在餐桌前时，这位新的家庭管理者几乎无法抑制自己的热情。他笑着对妻子说："玛丽，你看，我都做了什么。十个蛋糕。十个! 当你管理这个家时，我们只有一个，或最多两个。啊，即使在厨房这个女人的神圣领域，也需要男人的逻辑性、有序性和高效性的大脑。在一天之内，我已经彻底改变了烹饪事业，并把它建立在一个良好的基础上。

蛋糕很好吃，一家人津津有味地吃了几乎一整块。他们被劝说着吃完了。但是还剩下九个。通过良好的销售技巧，这位由实业家变成的厨师诱导家人再吃一个，他们为了取悦他，也吃了一个，但他们对它没有任何兴趣。在这一点上，琼斯先生发现自己面临着他在生意上每天都要面对的同样问题--他必须卖出更多。库存必须减少，单位成本必须削减。这只能通过刺激需求和增加消费来实现。因此，他采用了现金回扣制度，为小威廉提供一角钱，让他订购第三块蛋糕的一大部分。威廉看到这是一个消费市场；他知道这样的奇迹是不自然的和无常的，所以忍不住要囤积起来。最后，琼斯先生用尽了推销员的每一个已知的伎俩，哄着、骗着、贿赂着这一家人，把第三个蛋糕处理掉了。这时，每个人都已经到了严重不适的阶段，对进一步的恳求完全无动于衷，他认识到市场饱和的症状。

那天晚上，家庭医生一直在忙着处理不同程度的消化不良，从轻度到急性。然而，琼斯夫人对家人的照顾使他们处于有利地位，到了早上，所有人都恢复得相当好。

早餐时，琼斯夫人对她的丈夫说："你当然知道医生的费用必须从你的预算中支出。这都是你的错。

'但我没有为此设置储备金，'琼斯先生回答说。'你知道，在我们换地方之前，我一直在给医生付钱。他的账单不应该从家庭预算中支出。

'一样，'琼斯夫人说，'恐怕你得把它加到你的生产成本中。那么下次你就会知道不要让市场过剩了。

这一次，琼斯先生无话可说，他的妻子继续说：'幸运的是，在未来很长一段时间内，我们不会再需要任何蛋糕。但是，当我们需要时，如果你必须这样做，你可以烤十个，然后扔掉九个。你不会反对的。我知道，这种方法在你们的经济界很常见。"维持市场"，--你不就是这么叫的吗？这不是第一次为了维持市场而破坏食物。而且，当然，你们这些制造商不断地生产货物，由于缺乏需求而被浪费。所以我不应该敢建议你们只烤一个蛋糕，仅仅因为那是我们所需要的。这将是异端邪说。这将是低效的。这将是不利用 "工厂能力 "的犯罪行为。煤气灶可以轻松地容纳10个蛋糕，烘烤一个蛋糕的煤气也可以烘烤其他蛋糕。电动搅拌器也是一种投资。你不应该让它闲置，因为开销会毁了我们。所以，继续你的计划吧，约翰。我只知道你会在增加和削减单位成本方面做得很出色--但别忘了处理你的剩余。

'越来越讽刺了，不是吗？'琼斯先生回答。'嗯，也许我确实犯了一个错误。总之，让我们忘记想要的帮助，告诉我如何处理昨天的这七个蛋糕。把它们扔掉似乎太可惜了'。

琼斯夫人很有帮助。她把剩下的蛋糕放在她的车里，在她的朋友中分发。她知道，过不了多久，她的朋友们就会给她带来几杯果冻或其他自制的美味作为回报。

琼斯先生不喜欢他妻子解决这个问题的方法，但他没有资格抗议。这种友好的货物交换让他觉得非常原始，是对野蛮部落的经济方法的回归。他认为经济是指货币、庞大的组织、复杂的金融结构、股票和债券、银行和信贷，以及其他一百多种复杂的装置。所有这些他都很自豪地考虑到了，作为我们的文明所处的崇高层面的证据。但是，在这个雄伟的森林里，他失去了对树木的观察。他忘记了任何经济体系的唯一目的是促进生活必需品和奢侈品的制造和交换，以便使生活变得更容易和更美好。像其他许多工业界的领袖一样，他已经开始考虑商业，而不是作为实现这一目的的手段，而是作为目的本身。难怪他很难适应家庭经济的基本原则，其唯一目的是促进家庭的福利和幸福。


III.
当琼斯夫人从她那小小的易货贸易之旅回来时，她的丈夫正忙着用吸尘器，在客厅的地毯上做最后的修饰。

'为什么，'她喊道，'你几乎已经完成了清洁工作！'。那你打算怎么做？如果用扫帚，你会花四倍的时间。在这里，你只用了几分钟的真空吸尘器，你几乎已经完成了。那么机器就得闲置到明天了。天哪，你可以打扫两倍大的房子！我想我们真的没有什么可做的了。我想我们除了买一个更大的房子外，真的没有什么可做的。浪费这台电动扫地机所节省的所有时间实在是太可惜了。然后是对机器的投资；你不能让它闲置。这不是效率。是的，我可以看到，吸尘器在未来将不得不给自己一个更好的交代。它必须被更多地使用，而确保这一点的唯一方法就是买一个更大的房子。

'你完全失去理智了吗？'琼斯先生惊讶地问道。

'一点也不，'他的妻子回答说。'我刚刚开始理解你看问题的方式。我们必须进行 "工厂扩张"--你们商人不就是这么称呼它的吗？我们必须实现我们的吸尘器的生产潜力。它哭着喊着要扫新地毯，当然新房子会需要很多新地毯。想想看，约翰！我们将立即创造出一个巨大的、未曾有过的空间。我们将立即为我们的电动扫地机的服务创造一个巨大的、未经触及的市场。这些年来，我是多么愚蠢啊！多么没有效率啊！"。多么低效啊! 为什么，那个愚蠢的老式吸尘器一直在壁橱里，多年来，除了每天几分钟外，几乎所有的时间都是闲置的，而我直到现在才意识到它是多么的浪费。


'拜托，玛丽，别傻了，'琼斯先生呵斥道。

'哦，我很荒唐吗？为什么，我以为我在遵循你的商业逻辑。难道你忘了两年前，你的工头发明了那个省力的装置，使一个人可以照顾两台机器而不是一台？你扩大了工厂，投入了两倍的机器，产量翻了一番。你当时说，用不了多久，我就可以拥有一辆新车和一件新的毛皮大衣以及各种东西了，因为利润将增加一倍以上。产量增加了一倍，就像你计划的那样，但是到了年底，你有一半的货物在仓库里，你关闭了工厂，而机器和新工厂 "吃了他们的头"，正如你所说的那么古怪。

琼斯夫人嫣然一笑，但琼斯先生却结结巴巴地冲向他的新圣地--厨房。

那天下午，当琼斯夫人下楼去参加教会俱乐部的会议时，发现她的丈夫坐在客厅的壁炉前，抽着香喷喷的雪茄，心满意足地沉浸在一本书中。她进来时，他愧疚地抬起头来。

'有事吗，约翰？'她问。'以这种方式浪费时间，一点也不像你。你肯定不会在下午时分坐在办公室里看书！"。即使你无事可做，你至少要努力表现得很忙。

'我还有一个小时才需要开始吃晚饭，'琼斯先生解释说，'其他事情都已经处理好了。

'你完成了午餐的菜肴吗？是的，我想你已经完成了。用新的洗碗机只需很短的时间。但是，说真的，我不知道该如何建议有效利用你节省的时间。我不知道如何为一台将脏碗变成干净碗的机器提供更多原材料。我希望你不会被逼得走投无路，不得不发明一台洗碗机，以便让洗碗机保持满负荷运转。

琼斯先生的雪茄在嘴里变苦了，他对他的书失去了兴趣，但他的妻子匆匆出了门，走了她的路。

四
当琼斯夫人从俱乐部会议回来时，她带来了消息，为她的丈夫欢呼。教会的妇女们要举行一个大型的慈善晚宴，琼斯先生在这里面看到了一个机会，可以在一个真正的测试中展示他的效率、组织、大规模生产的方法。他赶紧打电话，并立即开始订购火腿和鸡肉、果冻和腌菜以及其他几样东西，这些东西将被用来喂养将被邀请的一百人。

当天晚上，史密斯夫人来谈晚宴的安排，但琼斯夫人把这个尴尬的电话转给了新的美食和家政主任。琼斯先生很高兴有这个机会来传播他的效率福音，他立即从技术上概述了他按照最先进的工厂方法准备整个事件的计划。

我确信，"他总结说，"通过适当的组织和大规模生产，我可以把每顿晚餐的单位成本降到最低纪录。我想我可以保证，俱乐部每个成员的现金捐款将比以前任何时候都要少。

史密斯夫人打断了他的话。'但是，琼斯先生，'她说，'你的建议会打乱我们所有的安排。你看，我们每个成员都有自己的特产要供应。例如，每年夏天，当我摆放果冻时，我总是为教会晚宴多留出几罐。无名氏对秋刀鱼和泡菜也是这样做的。罗太太从她自己的谷场提供鸡，富兰克林太太从她的农场提供土豆。晚宴中实际投入的钱很少。我们每个人都捐出她最有能力提供的东西。

'你看，约翰，'琼斯夫人带着纵容的微笑说，'我们中没有人试图占领整个晚餐市场。我们计划和合作。我们不会像你们这些制造商那样，当一个新的领域被开辟出来时，每个制造商都会去占领整个市场。如果我们这样做，我们就会发现自己在为一千人而不是一百人提供晚餐。罗太太可能会做足土豆沙拉，而无名氏则确信她自己的土豆沙拉要好得多，可能会再做足一个，并与罗太太的产品竞争。这样我们就会出现生产过剩，而我们所有人都会因此而损失。我们通过尽可能密切地估计我们的市场来避免这种情况，并且我们计划和合作来供应需求。我想，约翰，这确实会让你感到非常原始，但不知为何，它似乎以最小的浪费达到了我们的目的。

最后，琼斯先生无计可施，只好偷偷溜到电话旁，取消了他的订单。

此后，他似乎成了一个受到责备的人。他没有再让自己成为他妻子讽刺的对象，他生产的东西超过了他的家人可以使用的范围，只是为了证明他的家用机器的效率。几天后，他开始偶尔在他的俱乐部度过一个下午。他开始打高尔夫球，并将许多闲暇时间用于探索他那相当大的图书馆，迄今为止，这只是一个未使用的书籍收藏。他发现自己开始对各种迷人的主题感兴趣。他真的非常喜欢自己，尽管每当琼斯夫人发现他在工作时间从事这些消遣活动时，他脸上都会出现愧疚的表情。

有一天，她对他说："也许你现在可以看到，约翰，省力设备的目的其实是为了省力，这样就可以把更多的时间用于愉快和刺激的生活。

在这之后不久，琼斯先生决定，他的生意又需要他的关注。他的妻子相信，他回到办公室时，已经很好地掌握了一些初级但有启发性的经济学课程。


V.
当然，没有人会像这位神话中的琼斯先生那样在家庭经济领域做出愚蠢的行为，但有许多琼斯先生在他们自己的大规模工业领域做出了同样愚蠢的行为，他们完全无视市场需求而扩大工厂和堆积货物。也许有人会说，我所画的平行线并不公平，因为家庭单位是如此之小和静止，以至于它的要求很容易被衡量，而在供应这些要求时没有竞争的因素。但是，国家毕竟只是这些小单位的总和，如果有适当的合作，在一定范围内估计国家需要的商品数量应该不是不可能的。

当然，这里出现了一个问题，即我们目前是生产过剩还是消费不足，简而言之，就是购买力的问题。这是一个很大的问题，我在这篇文章中没有空间来处理，但我希望在其他时间能写到这个问题。我在这里想说的唯一一点是：现在是时候了，我们应该开始使用我们的节省劳动力的机器来实际节省劳动力，而不是用它来胡乱充斥国家的剩余货物，这些货物会堵塞贸易渠道。当然，这将以一些合作努力为前提，以确定人民的需求并进行相应的生产。


在琼斯先生的寓言中，也许琼斯夫人的情况比她应该得到的要好。她当然获得了闲暇，但令人怀疑的是，全国各地成千上万的琼斯夫人是否正在最好地利用他们家中的省力设备所带来的新的时间财富。但至少机会是存在的。妇女已经赢得了第一场战斗，而在工业世界--男人的世界--机器正在打击我们被围困的人民的生计。如果我们要赢得这场更大的战斗，我们必须对机器和建立在它之上的复杂经济结构采取一种新的集体观点。

我深信，机器已经从生活中拿走了一些东西。我们已经并仍在为它给我们带来的好处付出巨大的代价。但错误在于我们。我们没有正确地使用它。如果机械时代的进步现在突然停止，我应该说，它的缺点已经超过了它的好处。但进一步的发展是肯定会到来的。我们现在不能把机器扔下海。它与我们同在，我们的任务是让它满足我们的需要。在机器中，如果控制得当，就有希望将人类的劳作减少到最低限度--不仅仅是我们可以摆脱劳作，而是每个人都可以有机会过上幸福的生活，在明智的指导下，有可能导致心理和精神的成长。


我并不以经济学家自居，但从我的立场出发，我试图从人道主义和常识的角度来研究整个问题。对我来说，正如对有思想的人来说，货物的制造和交换构成了现代生活的主要影响，这一点很明显。这是个错误的强调。现在，我们有机会通过使用节省劳动力的机器来实现其表面上的节省劳动力的目的，从而逐渐转移这一重点。这将意味着减少广大人民群众的劳动时间。作为一项紧急措施，趋势已经朝着这个方向发展，而且我相信，朝这个方向发展的压力将超过紧急状态，因为它是机械时代发展的必然结果。这个新方向绝非不可能。如果我认为是这样，我就会对人类失去信心。

毕竟，期望我们的聪明才智能够重组我们的经济体系，以利用我们所创造的机器，这是不是太过分了？这在很大程度上取决于男人--政治家和工业领袖；如果他们不能完成这项任务，我们女人就得把他们送进厨房，上几堂常识性的经济学课。