Part 27

"No doubt you were right," rejoined Dr. Leete; "but all that is changed. We have no parties or politicians."

"Human nature itself must have changed very much."

"Not at all; but the conditions of human life have changed, and with them the motives of human action. The organisation 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. Now society is so constituted that there is absolutely no way in which an official could possibly make any profit for himself or anyone else by a misuse of his power."

III.--Labour's New Régime

"But you have not yet told me how you have settled the labour problem."

"When the nation became the sole employer," said Dr. Leete, "all the citizens became employees, to be distributed according to the needs of industry."

"That is, you have simply applied the principle of universal military service, as understood in our day, to the labour question."

"Yes. Nevertheless, to speak of service being compulsory would be a weak way to state its absolute inevitableness. If it were conceivable that a man could escape it, he would be left with no possible way to provide for his existence. 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, the citizen is liable to special calls for labour emergencies till fifty-five."

"But what administrative talent can be equal to determining wisely what trade or business every individual in a great nation shall pursue?"

"The administration has nothing to do with determining that point. Every man determines it for himself in accordance with his natural aptitude, the utmost pains being taken to enable him to find out what his natural aptitude really is. Usually, long before he is mustered into service, a young man has found out the pursuit he wants to follow, has acquired a great deal of knowledge about it, and is awaiting impatiently the time when he can enlist in its ranks."

"Surely, it can hardly be that the number of volunteers for any trade is exactly the number needed?"

"The supply is always expected to equal fully the demand. The rate of volunteering is closely watched. It is the business of the administration to equalise the attractions of the trades, so that the lightest trades have the longest hours, while an arduous trade, such as mining, has very short hours."

"How is the class of common labourers recruited?"

"It is the grade to which all new recruits belong for the first three years. If a man were so stupid as to have no choice as to occupation, he would simply remain a common labourer."

"Having once elected and entered on a trade or occupation, I suppose he has to stick to it the rest of his life?"

"Not necessarily," replied Dr. Leete; "while frequent and merely capricious changes of occupation are net permitted, every worker is allowed, of course under regulations and in accordance with the exigencies of the service, to volunteer for another industry which he thinks would suit him better than his first choice. It is only the poorer sort of workmen who desire to change. Of course, transfers or discharges are always given when health demands them."

"How are the brain-workers selected? That must require a very delicate sort of sifting process?"

"So it does, the most delicate possible test; so we leave the question whether a man shall be a brain or handworker entirely to him to settle. At the end of the three years of common labour, if a man feels he can do better work with his brain than his muscles, the schools of technology, medicine, art, music, histrionics, and higher liberal learning are open to him without condition. But anyone without the special aptitude would find it easier to do double hours at his trade than try to keep up with the classes. This opportunity for a professional training remains open to every man till the age of thirty."

IV.--The New Plan

Dr. and Mrs. Leete were startled to learn I had been all over the city alone. "You must have seen a good many new things," said Mrs. Leete, as we sat down to table.

"I think what surprised me as much as anything was not to find any stores in Washington Street, or any banks of State. What have you done with the merchants and bankers?"

"Their functions are obsolete in the modern world. There is neither selling nor buying, and we have no money. As soon as the nation became the producer of all sorts of commodities, there was no need of exchanges between individuals. Everything was procurable from one source, and that only. A system of direct distribution from the national storehouses took the place of trade, and for this money was unnecessary."

"How is this distribution managed?"

"A credit, corresponding to his share of the annual product of the nation, is given to every citizen on the public books at the beginning of each year, and a credit-card issued him, with which he procures at the public stores, found in every community, whatever he desires, whenever he desires it.

"You observe," he pursued, as I was curiously examining the piece of pasteboard he gave me, "that this credit-card is issued for a certain number of dollars. We keep the old term dollars as an algebraical symbol for comparing the values of products with one another. All are priced in dollars and cents, just as in your day. The value of what I procure on this card is checked off by the clerk, who pricks out of these tiers of squares the price of what I order."

"If you wanted to buy something of your neighbour, could you transfer part of your credit to him?"

"Our neighbours have nothing to sell us; but, in any event, one's credit would not be transferable, being strictly personal. Before the nation could even think of honouring any such transfer, it would be bound to inquire into its equity. It would have been reason enough, had there been no other, for abolishing money, that its possession was no indication of rightful title to it. In the hands of the man who had stolen it, it was as good as if earned by industry.

"People nowadays interchange gifts, but buying and selling is considered absolutely inconsistent with the mutual benevolence and disinterestedness which should prevail between citizens. According to our ideas, the practice of buying and selling is essentially anti-social in all its tendencies. It is an education in self-seeking at the expense of others, and no society whose citizens are trained in such a school can possibly rise above a very low grade of civilisation."