| Chapter 6
| 0 | |
| Dr. Leete ceased speaking, and I remained silent, endeavoring
to form some general conception of the changes in the arrangements
of society implied in the tremendous revolution which he
had described.
| 1 | |
| Finally I said, "The idea of such an extension of the functions
of government is, to say the least, rather overwhelming."
| 2 | |
| "Extension!" he repeated, "where is the extension?"
| 3 | |
| "In my day," I replied, "it was considered that the proper
functions of government, strictly speaking, were limited to
keeping the peace and defending the people against the public
enemy, that is, to the military and police powers."
| 4 | |
| "And, in heaven's name, who are the public enemies?"
exclaimed Dr. Leete. "Are they France, England, Germany, or
hunger, cold, and nakedness? In your day governments were
accustomed, on the slightest international misunderstanding, to
seize upon the bodies of citizens and deliver them over by
hundreds of thousands to death and mutilation, wasting their
treasures the while like water; and all this oftenest for no
imaginable profit to the victims. We have no wars now, and our
governments no war powers, but in order to protect every citizen
against hunger, cold, and nakedness, and provide for all his
physical and mental needs, the function is assumed of directing
his industry for a term of years. No, Mr. West, I am sure on
reflection you will perceive that it was in your age, not in ours,
that the extension of the functions of governments was extraordinary.
Not even for the best ends would men now allow their
governments such powers as were then used for the most
maleficent."
| 5 | |
| "Leaving comparisons aside," I said, "the demagoguery and
corruption of our public men would have been considered, in my
day, insuperable objections to any assumption by government of
the charge of the national industries. We should have thought
that no arrangement could be worse than to entrust the politicians
with control of the wealth-producing machinery of the
country. Its material interests were quite too much the football
of parties as it was."
| 6 | |
| "No doubt you were right," rejoined Dr. Leete, "but all that is
changed now. We have no parties or politicians, and as for
demagoguery and corruption, they are words having only an
historical significance."
| 7 | |
| "Human nature itself must have changed very much," I said.
| 8 | |
| "Not at all," was Dr. Leete's reply, "but the conditions of
human life have changed, and with them the motives of human
action. The organization of society with you was such that officials
were under a constant temptation to misuse their power
for the private profit of themselves or others. Under such
circumstances it seems almost strange that you dared entrust
them with any of your affairs. Nowadays, on the contrary, society
is so constituted that there is absolutely no way in which an
official, however ill-disposed, could possibly make any profit for
himself or any one else by a misuse of his power. Let him be as
bad an official as you please, he cannot be a corrupt one. There is
no motive to be. The social system no longer offers a premium
on dishonesty. But these are matters which you can only
understand as you come, with time, to know us better."
| 9 | |
| "But you have not yet told me how you have settled the labor
problem. It is the problem of capital which we have been
discussing," I said. "After the nation had assumed conduct of
the mills, machinery, railroads, farms, mines, and capital in
general of the country, the labor question still remained. In
assuming the responsibilities of capital the nation had assumed
the difficulties of the capitalist's position."
| 10 | |
| "The moment the nation assumed the responsibilities of
capital those difficulties vanished," replied Dr. Leete. "The
national organization of labor under one direction was the
complete solution of what was, in your day and under your
system, justly regarded as the insoluble labor problem. When
the nation became the sole employer, all the citizens, by virtue
of their citizenship, became employees, to be distributed according
to the needs of industry."
| 11 | |
| "That is," I suggested, "you have simply applied the principle
of universal military service, as it was understood in our day, to
the labor question."
| 12 | |
| "Yes," said Dr. Leete, "that was something which followed as
a matter of course as soon as the nation had become the sole
capitalist. The people were already accustomed to the idea that
the obligation of every citizen, not physically disabled, to contribute
his military services to the defense of the nation was
equal and absolute. That it was equally the duty of every citizen
to contribute his quota of industrial or intellectual services to
the maintenance of the nation was equally evident, though it
was not until the nation became the employer of labor that
citizens were able to render this sort of service with any pretense
either of universality or equity. No organization of labor was
possible when the employing power was divided among hundreds
or thousands of individuals and corporations, between
which concert of any kind was neither desired, nor indeed
feasible. It constantly happened then that vast numbers who
desired to labor could find no opportunity, and on the other
hand, those who desired to evade a part or all of their debt could
easily do so."
| 13 | |
| "Service, now, I suppose, is compulsory upon all," I suggested.
| 14 | |
| "It is rather a matter of course than of compulsion," replied
Dr. Leete. "It is regarded as so absolutely natural and reasonable
that the idea of its being compulsory has ceased to be thought
of. He would be thought to be an incredibly contemptible
person who should need compulsion in such a case. Nevertheless,
to speak of service being compulsory would be a weak way
to state its absolute inevitableness. Our entire social order is so
wholly based upon and deduced from it that if it were conceivable
that a man could escape it, he would be left with no
possible way to provide for his existence. He would have
excluded himself from the world, cut himself off from his kind,
in a word, committed suicide."
| 15 | |
| "Is the term of service in this industrial army for life?"
| 16 | |
| "Oh, no; it both begins later and ends earlier than the average
working period in your day. Your workshops were filled with
children and old men, but we hold the period of youth sacred to
education, and the period of maturity, when the physical forces
begin to flag, equally sacred to ease and agreeable relaxation. The
period of industrial service is twenty-four years, beginning at the
close of the course of education at twenty-one and terminating
at forty-five. After forty-five, while discharged from labor, the
citizen still remains liable to special calls, in case of emergencies
causing a sudden great increase in the demand for labor, till he
reaches the age of fifty-five, but such calls are rarely, in fact
almost never, made. The fifteenth day of October of every year is
what we call Muster Day, because those who have reached the
age of twenty-one are then mustered into the industrial service,
and at the same time those who, after twenty-four years' service,
have reached the age of forty-five, are honorably mustered out. It
is the great day of the year with us, whence we reckon all other
events, our Olympiad, save that it is annual."
| 17 | |
|