A cityless and countryless world

“But, if each individual keeps his own record of the time he has labored, and the money is issued to him or her according to that time-record, is not an individual tempted to make false entries in his time-book?” asked Rev. Dudley.

“I will tell you, Rev. Dudley; we must always bear in mind that man’s conduct, as a whole, always nearly, if not exactly, corresponds to the social and industrial system under which he voluntarily lives. We must take into account the conditions, and his culture. To illustrate this, let us take an example: Cattle, after breaking into a cornfield, sometimes kill themselves by eating too much corn. Some children, as well as some grown people, on certain holidays, eat themselves sick on sweetmeats and other dainties. But neither the people nor the cattle would eat too much, if they always had all they wanted of those eatables. A clerk in a candy store seldom eats candy. So in our kind, rich world, where men and women work less than two hours a day at some choice labor which is almost play, and where their short pleasant day’s labor yields, by the aid of economy, co-operation and machinery, a return of more than $10 worth of your purchasing power, the temptation for false entries must indeed be decidedly inconsiderable.

“In a world where the social and industrial conditions are so favorable, and where the contempt for idleness and dishonesty is such a burden to bear, the degree of temptation for making false entries, for the purpose of unjustly gaining a few hours’ labor, is vastly different than it would be in your world, where thousands upon thousands are out of employment, where they are severely pinched by poverty, where the laborer is nothing but an industrial slave, where the wife and children depend upon the income of the man, where the sense of justice has been calloused by continual infringements of rights, where want and the fear of want are continually staring them in the face, and where fraud, accomplished by avaricious shrewdness, is applauded instead of being condemned as it is in our world.

“And, furthermore, one could scarcely be dishonest in making his entries if he wanted to be, without being discovered by his companions and co-laborers, who have as much right to examine his time-book as the owner has himself. You see the time-books are kept in a public place and may be examined by anyone. Labor, with us, is honorable, and we have also learned that in order to develop most completely, and enjoy the most vigorous health, about two hours of physical labor is daily necessary. This, alone, would be a sufficient incentive to perform the labor, even if we required no material wealth to live on. But if one, notwithstanding all this, would still persist in making false entries or do any other acts that are grossly against the well ascertained harmony of society, we would care for him as an insane person, giving him the greatest freedom possible or consistent with his mental derangement, and always treat him with the greatest kindness and courtesy. Such a person, of all our millions, might and does occasionally appear, but it is a rare occurrence. This treatment is perfectly consistent with the greatest liberty of the case, for all wrong, as we have seen, is the result of ignorance or insanity, whatever you may call it. This fact becomes very plain when we recall that we are all in pursuit of the greatest happiness, and that we can attain this greatest happiness only by living most completely in tune with the fact of the universe.”

“Some labor,” said Mr. Uwins, “such as mining, etc., is more disagreeable than clerking, etc. You say every one receives equal pay for a day’s labor; how, then, do you get laborers in these more disagreeable occupations if all are free to go in any occupation?”

“Yes, every one can go in any occupation he desires, and all receive equal pay for a day’s labor, which is put down in the time-book, and at the close of each month every person receives an amount of money or labor-checks equal to the number of days he or she labored. But the length of a day’s labor varies according as the labor is, as a whole, agreeable or disagreeable. A clerk works more minutes a day than a miner. So you see that we make the proper adjustment by the length of a day’s labor. If we get too many laborers in a certain field, we lengthen the day, this will drop out some; if too few, we shorten the day, which will bring in some more. But you must also bear in mind that there is very little difference in the kinds of our labor now. Nearly all the disagreeableness disappears as we do the work more and more by the aid of improved machinery. Our mining is now nearly all done by machinery which is easily manipulated by the miner; and so in all occupations. Co-operation continually creates a greater demand for better and larger machinery, which is operated for the benefit of all. Nearly all our labor can also be done by the piece, so much constituting a day.”

“But, Mr. Midith, do you think it is just to pay everybody alike for a day’s labor, when some are much stronger and more apt workers than others, when some are skilled and others are not? Does this not tend to throw nearly all the laborers in the common field of labor, instead of being skilled?” asked Rev. Dudley. “Of course you have seen the practical results of it, but for my part I do not understand how you overcame this apparent or real difficulty.”

“It is really no difficulty at all,” said Mr. Midith. “To illustrate: You have a small family and we have a large family. Your parents pay a 200-pound son or daughter no more for a day’s labor than they pay a feebler one. They even pay the totally disabled one the same. I presume that you think such a course is all right in your family, but why should it not be equally right in our family and in our community? But that is not all. A person weighing 200 pounds, as a rule, eats more than a 100-pound person, but pays the same price for his meals. The large person receives more cloth in his suit. He buys a larger hat for the same price. On account of his greater weight he wears out more carpet, more furniture, etc. So you see that a large, strong person may sometimes produce a little more by a day’s labor, but he also often receives more for the same pay, so that the two nearly or altogether balance each other. But this is not all. You remember me telling you that in a state of high culture, in which all are free, intelligent beings, and in which natural opportunity is equally open to all, there can be very little physical and mental difference between the individual members of the same community, because none of them have been dwarfed by heredity, none have been stunted by vicious training, and none have been prevented from giving full scope of activity to all their faculties. And furthermore, with our excellent facilities for intercommunication, there is even little physical and mental dissimilarity existing between members of remotely located communities.

“Your idea as to our skilled labor is also entirely erroneous. Every member of our large family, the same as a member of your small family, can engage in any occupation he desires, whether man, woman or child. It costs nothing with us to learn a trade. A person who is learning a trade receives just as much the first day he begins as he does when he is the best mechanic in the world. A day is a day. But to excel in our work is the aim and ambition of all. We look upon honesty, kindness and physical and mental ability with even greater approval than you look upon mere dollars and cents in this unjust, cruel age of yours. An apprentice with you receives at first little or no pay, and sometimes he must even pay the ‘boss’ for taking him. For this reason he must, further on, receive higher pay than a common laborer. As a whole, the apprentice’s efforts are as valuable as the skilled man’s, for we can not get skilled men and women without first being apprentices. But our family and community recognize the fact that we must have laborers for all trades, and therefore we pay them the same price when learning as we do after they have learned their trade. You see, skilled labor, under these conditions, is worth no more than common labor, as you call it. It not only does not cost anything to learn a trade, but we receive as much for learning as we do ever after. Our ambition is to excel—to receive the approval of our companions and co-laborers. Our individuals, families and communities are even much prouder of excellent sons and daughters than your parents or families are here. We do all we can to raise the standard of excellence and proficiency in every member of the community by letting each receive the good and the bad consequences of his own conduct. Intrinsic worth is our highest aim, because without it the greatest happiness can not be attained.”

“Does it require much labor to stamp your money, and could a person who has charge of the money press be dishonest, if he chose to be?” asked Mrs. Uwins.

“Our money press is run by electric power, and requires only a few days’ labor per annum to stamp all the money we need. It is all done by the press; no human hand is needed only to set it going. It would be impossible for the minter to be dishonest, or for any other person to use the money-press. Each community has but one money press, and every press is different. The press automatically registers the number of bills, and the total amount of days, hours, minutes and seconds that it stamps. At the beginning of each fiscal year the press is set at bill No. 1, and the amount issued, at cipher. This setter is guarded by a time-lock, which can be opened only one hour during the whole year when the machine is set for the next year’s work. The press can by no possibility be turned backward, and the time-lock permits it to be operated forward only just two hours a month, during which time the minter stamps the monthly bills. So you see that neither the minter nor any one else can be dishonest if he tried to be. This precaution is not so much taken against fraud as against accidental error. We should always bear in mind that the simplest business system that allows the fewest intentional or accidental errors to creep in and remain undiscovered is the best system. At the end of each month all the labor records received at the mint are booked and footed up, and the total monthly amount of money issued. In this wise the minter always has two sets of figures, the one on his book and the other on the register of the money press. These two sets of figures must indicate the same amount of money issued.”

“That is a grand scheme,” said Rev. Dudley. “But how is it with your other business? Is that sealed with the same unavoidable honesty and correctness as your money making is?”

“All our business is done on nearly the same principle. Besides the individual who transacts his private business to suit his own taste, there are two collectivities that do business—the family and the community. These two always check each other. The family’s annual invoice shows the goods on hand. Its daily remittances to the ‘Com’ show all the money it has taken in, in all its departments—store, dining-hall, barbershop, restaurant, etc. The warehouses, which keep an account of all the commodities they receive and send out, check it up with the goods it receives from the community, and the ‘Com’ checks it with the bills the ‘Com’ paid for it to other communities for goods the family purchased.

“In a similar manner, the ‘Com’ of the community checks with all its families and with all its warehouses. Under such a system it is hardly possible that an error can be passed unnoticed.”

“But I see no opportunity in your economic system for capital to earn anything,” said Rev. Dudley.

“Capital never does earn anything,” responded Mr. Midith. “Labor earns all. This idea of yours that capital earns something is an illusion. We have seen that all material wealth which immediately satisfies man’s wants, consists of food, clothing, shelter and luxuries, and that all these can be actually produced only by productive labor. The physical molecules, as such, composing a plow are not wealth, but the plow is wealth no farther than it required productive labor in its production. For all we know, there is an inexhaustible amount of iron and steel waiting for us to be mined, and an inexhaustible opportunity for raising the wood necessary in the manufacture of plows. The tools with which the plow is made were also all produced by labor. In a just, economic system every laborer, whether man, woman, or child, should receive exactly all he earns, no more and no less; and, if they do that, there will be nothing left for capital, for all wealth must be produced by labor.

“Let us take an example to illustrate this. We will say that our community owns a machine for boring artesian wells, a machine which is not owned by every community. Now, we first do our own work with it; then some other community desires us to sink a well for them. Our community sends a gang of men with the machine to sink the well for so much per foot. We have expended so much labor in the production of the machine; it requires so many men to operate it; it wears so long, and, the average work will be so much. According to these factors, which have been ascertained by long experience, we make our charge per foot, so that every person who labored in the production of the machine, as well as those who operate it during the whole existence of the machine, just receive their day’s wages and no more. Free competition determines this price per foot. We have no profit. You see if our community is not well adapted for boring wells, it will not engage in it; and, if it should do so, it will soon be crowded out by those communities who are better adapted for it. All the communities are free competitors in all fields of industry. This free, non-monopolistic competition has slowly eliminated all profit. Every community has an immense amount of capital in its ‘big-houses,’ warehouses, and depots; but this capital earns nothing; no interest and no profit; it is even slowly decaying—a loss which must be repaired by the labor of the members of the community. For this reason all communities are eager to sell their negotiable commodities, so as to hold the money of other communities, instead of holding their own commodities. From what I have already said, it is scarcely necessary to say here that money is not capital, but that it is only a representative of capital. We are not working for money but for the material wealth, food, clothing, shelter, and luxuries which the money represents. In this manner, I think, you can clearly see that labor earns all, for all the money is issued to the laborer, and that free competition, founded on a non-monopolistic supply and demand, determines the price of all commodities and regulates the amount of their needful production.”

“But,” said Viola, as she took hold of Mr. Midith’s hand, “if a laborer receives exactly all he earns, who, then, pays for the wear and tear of your property?”

Mr. Midith smiled and said: “The laborer does. We are all laborers, and the laborer produces everything and pays for everything. Let us see if I can make this point clear to you; if not, I shall have to take you with me to Mars as soon as I shall be able to go. But let that be as it may, the point is, that the individuals of the community must perform so many days or hours of productive labor per annum to keep up the supply of wealth and make all needful repairs and improvements. We have painters that are always painting new things and old things. We have boulevard and motor-line repairers. We have a gang of builders that are always building, rebuilding and repairing. We have laborers to work in the park and other places. There is a constant wear on everything—furniture, machinery, cars, trees, etc., etc. Just as any one would keep the same orchard for any length of time by always planting a new tree as soon as the old one dies, so we keep on making new things and repairing and improving old ones. This, of course, makes our day’s labor longer than it would be if there were no such wear and tear. Every day’s labor, in an average, then, must be long enough to include the production of the new things we need and the repair of the old ones. When a babe is born, it has always a home waiting for it in which it can live all its lifetime. It enjoys, in all respects, the same privileges that any other member of the family enjoys, and the first hour’s work it performs, it begins to pay for its home and other public conveniences, and continues to pay for them every day it works. So you see that a day’s labor must be long enough to cover all production and all wear and tear. Thus, if a member of our community should go to work for any other community which could advantageously employ more labor, he would receive all he actually earned and pay for all his actual wear and tear on the property of the community in which he is working. In this manner, a person can go wherever he desires and generally work when and where he likes. He pays the same price for his meals as he does at home. He receives a private apartment where he is ‘lord and master’ and in which he does his own chamber work, the same as at home. He pays for all his washing the same as he does at home. When he works the wear and tear of the public property he uses is included in his day’s work. If he does not work, he is considered a visitor and pays the same price for things he pays at home.”

“How plainly,” said Mr. Uwins, “can we see now how all the Marsites’ machinery is operated in the interest of the people instead of being operated in the interest of a few rich monopolists, as is largely the case here. Still our laborers, as a class, think that we can not get along without capitalists or millionaires. They always seem to imagine that capital is the greatest factor in the production of wealth. That the productive industry of the world would be fatally crippled or totally destroyed if there were no millionaires to keep it up. But how conspicuous the error of all this becomes as we become more familiar with your just system. In order to avoid being misunderstood, let me state here that by the foregoing remarks you plainly see that we highly esteem capital or wealth. But we believe that no one can be really rich without all being rich, or at least all being above want. What we condemn is the system which enables some to become capitalists or millionaires by appropriating the wealth produced by others by monopoly. We do not even particularly condemn the millionaire. He is a creature of circumstances, a product of a system.”

“But does not your social and industrial system, in which all are equal, kill ambition and high aspirations?” asked Rev. Dudley. “It seems to me that a person would have little incentive for work if he could not lay up something for a rainy day.”

“Things in our world actually prove to be nearly the opposite from what you seem to imagine them to be, Rev. Dudley. People once believed that the earth was flat; but a wider range of information proved it to be round. So in every field of thought and inquiry.

“In the first place allow me to inform you that there are very few rainy days with us. We live so strictly according to the laws of life and health that disease is almost unknown, and hence nearly every person keeps his bodily vigor almost unimpaired until he dies of old age. Our constitutions are not wrecked by anxiety, toil, exposure, anger and debauchery. Nearly all of our old people find pleasure in doing a certain amount of physical work for healthful exercise. Work to them has become very agreeable, because they were never burdened with it like nearly all of you are or have been. It is the burdensomeness of work that makes it disagreeable.

“You say there would be no ambition to labor if a person was unable to lay up something for a rainy day. I thoroughly agree with you on that point. We all lay up more than we need for our rainy days. If we work three-fourths of the time we can travel and visit the other fourth, spend all we want, and are still able to lay up one-fourth of our entire earnings; and when we do work our work is almost play. These favorable conditions ought to inspire us with a high average ambition. Every man, woman and youth has his purse full of money. They are all independent and self-reliant. Each is a little savings bank for himself.

“Now let us look with a just and unbiased eye at your conditions. Nearly all your women and children have to beg what little money they get from a man, who, as a rule, handles the money. Do you think, Rev. Dudley, that such a condition inspires a woman and a child with great ambition to work? Our women and children draw their own pay at the end of each month. A person’s ambition always corresponds to the brightness of a person’s present and future outlook; and does the future look bright to the multitude of your laborers? Look at the millions of men—day laborers—who have a family, who are sometimes out of employment, who are cursed and driven like slaves by their bosses, who have want staring them in the face, who are unable to give the wife and child money when they ask for it, who can plainly see, that under the present conditions, they can never lay up anything from the $1.25 they receive for their day’s labor, and not infrequently during old age they land in the poor house. Do you think that this vast army of poor laborers can, under such dependent, pitiful conditions, be inspired with great ambition for labor, and order, and honesty, and kindness, and truthfulness? The vast majority of your productive laborers are working for others, they having no direct interest in the production of their labors. We are all working for ourselves; the more we do the more we get. On account of your monopoly, there are more laborers than there are places for laborers; this makes wages low and creates an army of forced idlers. Do you think that such conditions are conducive to a high ambition, and that a model industry can flourish under them?

“Now let us extend our comparison a little further. I have already remarked several times that, in our world, there is a sharp, free, never-ending competition for the highest plane of perfection between individuals, between families and between communities. We settle all advancement by free competition, in which every one is invited a competitor, to stand on his or her own merits. Some of us have talents and aptitudes for one thing and some for another. We are by no means all inclined the same industrially. We are all endeavoring to push forward to the highest possible plane in our respective fields of aspirations. But, on the other hand, on account of so much extreme poverty, and wretchedness resulting from poverty, the people of earth have scarcely any other ambition than the accumulation of dollars and cents, in order, on the one hand, to occupy your best so-called social positions, and on the other to keep want and the fear of want from your door. We have learned that dollars and cents are easily gotten after other things have been adjusted harmoniously. We fundamentally seek for higher and nobler aspirations. After having obtained them the dollars and cents will easily come. We seek to learn how to co-operate most harmoniously; how to allow each individual the widest range of individual freedom; how to acquire the greatest and most useful information about the phenomenal universe; how to do our respective parts well, and how to build our happiness on the happiness of our fellow-man. Such are some of our aspirations, the field of which, no doubt, is so vast that it can never be completely explored by the power of human wisdom.”