Human Work by Charlotte Perkins Gilman — Read

_Summary_: _Previous propositions. Alleged selfishness. Social instincts as natural as individual. Root error on Consumption shown in Heaven, Utopia, etc. Honour in acting. Contentment theory. Limit of happiness in getting, limited; in doing, unlimited. Pleasure in eating, result of idea. Effect of this concept on Society. Impression merely incentive to expression. Transmitters, not vats. Collecting mania. Nature of ownership. Right of property. Social relations psychic. Movable rights. Law of property rights. Consumption means to production. Consumption must precede production. Natural limits of Consumption. Cause of excesses. Ill effect of morbid Consumption on producer. Must produce more than consume. Ten houses. List of propositions. Existing economic concepts. Influence of position of women. Women natural producers. Men natural destroyers. Men have monopolised production. Women made purely consumers. Women's powers, confined to family, breed selfishness. Generosity bred outside home. Feminine consumption become morbid. Vampire. Parasite. Hired matrimony. Woman as excessive consumer came of "Society. " A disease not a "function. " "Society columns," medical bulletins. Effect on consumption._

We have laid down certain propositions in the preceding chapters, namely, that men are part of a great Social Organism; that as parts of it they are continually supplied with its stimulus and nourishment; that as parts of it so nourished and so stimulated, they must discharge the swelling current of social energy in social action, which is Work; and that the business of a conscious and intelligent Society is so to produce and distribute social wealth as to maintain and increase this flood of energy, the discharge of which in our highly specialised industries is supreme delight. Against these propositions will be at once erected that common bulwark of ancient superstition, man's selfishness. We generally believe, and as generally act on the belief, that the individual selfishness of man is such that nothing would induce him to act for the good of society, even though that good plainly included himself.