C'est en 1884, soit six ans avant la parution de son célèbre Nouvelles de nulle part, que le socialiste révolutionnaire et architecte-décorateur, William Morris, prononce cette conférence. Voici comment nous vivons et voilà comment nous pourrions vivre, écrit Morris, qui appelle à un sursaut collectif pour substituer la " coopération " à " l'état de guerre perpétuelle " inhérent au capitalisme, introduire la nature et l'art dans " ces conglomérats énormes, impossibles à gérer, qu'on appelle des villes ", et refuser, au nom de la joie et de la dignité, la fatalité des " existences mécaniques ". Si le mot décroissance fait aujourd'hui polémique, ce texte révèle que l'idée, elle, ne date pas d'hier.

Comment nous pourrions vivre

I wish to say a few plain words on the subject of art; and since I address myself chiefly to those who are called the working-classes, I know well that the plainer those words are the better, since now for many years, for centuries, the working-classes have scarcely been partakers in art of any kind, and the phraseology of men learned in the fine arts will be strange to you. For centuries this slavery has been added to the rest of the oppression under which you lie, that you have been forbidden to have any share in the intelligent production of beautiful things.

Indeed, I think it will be news to many of you who toil to live that you may live to toil, that there either is or has been or can be any connexion between Art and the People. It may seem to you, I can well imagine, that art is concerned only in making luxurious toys for rich and idle persons, and that all the working-classes have to do with it, is that some of them can earn their poor wages by working at it as machines work, without knowing or caring what they are doing; while now and then on holidays those of them that chance to think of it and who live in London may stray into the National Gallery or the British Museum, and see the carefully hoarded works of past ages, and get from them such good as men can get who look on a book in an antiquated dialect of their language without an interpreter between them and the past.

Art and the People - Protest against Capitalist Brutality

What is the condition of Society under which we live? Is it satisfactory, is it quite as we should all like it to be? Does it quite please you who are listening to me, so that there is nothing you want to alter in it?
If that is the case, then none of my hearers are poor, and none have any fear of becoming poor; I am speaking to a crowd of rich men who are quite sure that they will always be rich. Well I see that is not quite the case; some of us are poor, some of us are afraid of becoming poor; some of us have to do very unpleasant work; all of us have to work more than we like; and we know of people who are worse off in all these matters than we are: So we do want to alter things if we could: we are not quite contented: if we say we are, we are not speaking truly but say so because we don't `want to argue, or because we want to get something out of rich people whose interest it is that we should be contented.
Well I should wonder if we were contented; for when we look at the present state of Society we find that the majority of people have every reason to wish to be better off than they are, that in point of fact they are living in misery. Let us look at the various conditions of life and see what portion of the whole people has good reason to be pleased with their share of the wealth, ease, good living, in a word, the happiness of this most highly civilized country...

Misery and the Way Out

William morris full color patterns & designs

The Designs Of William Morris

In dem Roman schläft der Erzähler, William Guest, nach der Rückkehr von einer Sitzung der Sozialistischen Liga ein und erwacht in einer zukünftigen Gesellschaft, die auf Gemeineigentum und demokratischer Kontrolle der Produktionsmittel beruht. In dieser Gesellschaft gibt es kein Privateigentum, keine Großstädte, keine Behörden, kein Geldsystem, keine Heirat oder Scheidung, keine Gerichte, keine Gefängnisse und keine Klassensysteme. Der Roman untersucht während einer utopischen Reise auf der Themse die Aspekte dieser Gesellschaft, einschließlich ihrer Organisation und der Beziehungen, die sie zwischen den Menschen hervorbringt. Es ist sowohl eine Reise durch die von der Revolution veränderte Gesellschaft als auch eine Suche nach dem Glück. Das Ziel der Suche des Protagonisten ist Ellen, das Symbol der wiedergeborenen Zeit, eine im Sozialismus emanzipierte Frau aus der Arbeiterklasse, aber auch ein gütiger Naturgeist und die Seele in Frauengestalt. 

Gibt es überzeugende Antworten auf Einwände gegen den Sozialismus? Gibt es in der utopisch kommunistischen Gesellschaft überhaupt einen Anreiz zur Arbeit? Wird der Protagonist sein persönliches Glück finden?

Nachrichten von Nirgendwo - Eine Epoche der Ruhe und eine utopische Romanze

Awhile ago there was a young man dwelling in a great and goodly city by the sea which had to name Langton on Holm. He was but of five and twenty winters, a fair-faced man, yellow-haired, tall and strong; rather wiser than foolisher than young men are mostly wont; a valiant youth, and a kind; not of many words but courteous of speech; no roisterer, nought masterful, but peaceable and knowing how to forbear: in a fray a perilous foe, and a trusty war-fellow. His father, with whom he was dwelling when this tale begins, was a great merchant, richer than a baron of the land, a head-man of the greatest of the Lineages of Langton, and a captain of the Porte; he was of the Lineage of the Goldings, therefore was he called Bartholomew Golden, and his son Golden Walter.

Now ye may well deem that such a youngling as this was looked upon by all as a lucky man without a lack; but there was this flaw in his lot, whereas he had fallen into the toils of love of a woman exceeding fair, and had taken her to wife, she nought unwilling as it seemed. But when they had been wedded some six months he found by manifest tokens, that his fairness was not so much to her but that she must seek to the foulness of one worser than he in all ways; wherefore his rest departed from him, whereas he hated her for her untruth and her hatred of him; yet would the sound of her voice, as she came and went in the house, make his heart beat; and the sight of her stirred desire within him, so that he longed for her to be sweet and kind with him, and deemed that, might it be so, he should forget all the evil gone by. But it was not so; for ever when she saw him, her face changed, and her hatred of him became manifest, and howsoever she were sweet with others, with him she was hard and sour.

The Wood Beyond the World

William Morris (1834-1896) connaît plusieurs carrières successives : il est peintre, poète, tisserand, traducteur, décorateur, romancier, éditeur, imprimeur. Vers 1883, il s'engage auprès des socialistes. Dès lors, il sillonne l'Angleterre, l'Ecosse, l'Irlande, pour donner des conférences, en général à des auditoires d'artistes ou d'ouvriers. Ce volume réunit trois de ces conférences. Il y examine le système économique de son temps et démontre avec ferveur ce que ce système a de déshumanisant, il s'y interroge sur les arts décoratifs et sur leur importance dans la vie quotidienne. Dans ces pages, Morris affirme ses préceptes favoris : aucun objet chez soi qui ne soit beau ou utile. Aucun travail qui ne soit une joie à accomplir. Rien de plus important que la beauté, l'amitié et la solidarité.

Comment nous vivons, comment nous pourrions vivre

Vers la fin du XIXe siècle, un conférencier socialiste s'endort. Divagant, promenant son esprit jusque dans la belle campagne anglaise du XIVe siècle, il rencontre quelques paysans, un ancien soldat, un prêtre rebelle. Ces hommes sont prêts à se battre ; mais, cette fois, ce ne sera pas pour leurs seigneurs, mais contre eux. John Ball, le curé qui sert de guide à ces rebelles, résume la pensée de tous en quelques mots : " Quand Adam bêchait et qu'Eve filait, où était alors le gentilhomme ? ". A leur manière, chacun de ces deux hommes se retrouve perdu dans un monde qui ne lui correspond pas. La discussion entre ces deux révoltés, portés par le même amour des hommes, se prolongera toute la nuit. Rêverie fantastique, nouvelle, traité philosophique, manifeste politique : Un rêve de John Ball, de l'écrivain, artiste, entrepreneur et militant William Morris (1834-1896) est tout cela à la fois. Il accompagne son lecteur dans un voyage onirique étonnant, mêlant aventures et réflexion, et qui s'achève sur un désir : celui de connaître " une lutte pleine d'espoir et une paix sans tâche, c'est-à-dire, en un mot, la vie ". Traduction de Marion Leclair.

Comment nous pourrions vivre

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