CHAPTER LXXI THE NEW WORLD

 (Describes the co-operative commonwealth¹, beginning with its money aspects; the standard wage and its variations.)

It has been indicated that the new society will be different in different countries and in different parts of the same country, in different industries and at different times. No one can predict exactly what it will be, and anyone who tries to predict is unscientific. But every man can work out his own ideas of the most economical and sensible arrangements for a co-operative society, and in these final chapters I set forth² my ideas.

One of the first things people ask is, "Will there be money in the new society, or how will labor³ be rewarded and goods paid for?" I answer that there will be money, and the business methods of the new society will be so nearly the same as at present that in this respect you would hardly realize there had been any change. The only difference will be that in the new society you will be paid several times as much for your labor; or, if you prefer to put it the other way, you will be able to buy several times as much with your money. Why should we waste our time working out systems of "credit-cards," when we already have a system in the form of gold and silver coins and paper currency? Why should we bother with "labor checks," when we have a banking⁴ and clearing-house system, understood by everyone but the illiterate⁵? The only difference we shall make is that nobody can get gold and silver coins or paper currency, except by performing labor to pay for them; nobody can have money in the bank and draw checks against it, until he has rendered to society an equivalent amount of service.

When you have earned your money in the new world, you will spend it wherever you please, and for whatever you please; the only difference being that the price you pay will be the exact labor-cost of producing that article, with no deduction⁶ for any form of exploitation. As I wrote sixteen years ago in "The Industrial Republic," you will be able to get, if you insist upon it, a seven-legged spider made of diamonds, and the only question society will ask is, Have you performed services equivalent to the material and labor necessary to the creating of that unusual article of commerce? Of course, society won't put it to you in that complicated formula; it will simply ask, "Have you got the price?" Which, you observe, is exactly the question society asks you at present.

The next thing that everybody wants to know is, "Shall we all be paid the same wages?" I answer, yes and no, because there will be three systems of payment. There will be a basic wage, which everybody will get for every kind of useful service necessary to production; this will be, as it were, the foundation of our economic structure. On top of this will be built a system of special payments for special services, which are of an intellectual nature, and cannot be standardized⁷ and dealt with wholesale⁸. In addition, there will be for a time a third arrangement, applying to agricultural work, which is in a different stage of development, and to which different conditions apply.

Let us take, first, our standard wage. The census⁹ of our Utopian commonwealth reveals that we have ten million able-bodied workers engaged in mining, manufacturing, and transportation; this including, of course, office-work and management—everything that enters into these industries. By scientific management, the best machinery¹⁰, and the elimination¹¹ of all possible waste, we find that they produce eighty million dollars worth of goods an hour. A portion of this we have to set aside to pay for the raw materials which they do not produce, and for the upkeep of the plant, and for margin¹² of error—what our great corporations call a surplus. We find that we have fifty million dollars per hour left, and that means that we can pay for labor five dollars per hour, or twenty dollars for the regular four-hour day. This is our standard wage, received by all able-bodied workers.

But quickly we find that our industries are not properly balanced. A great many men want to work at the jobs which are clean and pleasant, such as delivering mail, and very few want to work at washing dishes in restaurants and cleaning the sewers¹³. There is no way we can adjust this, except by paying a higher wage, or by reducing the number of hours in the working day, which is the same thing. The only other method would be to have the state assign men to their work, and that would be bureaucracy and slavery, the essence of everything we wish to get away from in our co-operative commonwealth.

What we shall have, so far as concerns our basic industries, is a government department, registering with mathematical accuracy the condition of supply and demand in all the industries of the country. Our demand for shoes is increasing, for some reason or other; a thousand more shoe-workers are needed, therefore the price of labor in the shoe industry is increased five cents per day—or whatever amount will draw that number of workers from other occupations. On the other hand, there are too many people applying for the job of driving trucks, therefore we reduce slightly the compensation for this work. There are more men who want jobs in Southern California than in Alaska, therefore the payment for the same grade of work in Alaska has to be higher. All this is not merely speculation¹⁴, it is not a matter of anybody's choice; it is an automatic, self-adjusting system, subject to precise calculations. The only change from our present system is from guesswork to exact measurement. At present we do not know how many shoes our country will require next season, neither do we know how many shoes are going to be made, neither do we know how many people can make shoes, nor how many would like to learn, nor how many would like to quit that job and take to farming. It would be the simplest matter in the world to find out these things—far simpler that it was to register all our possible soldiers, and examine them physically¹⁵ and mentally, and train them and feed them and ship them overseas to "can the Kaiser."

Of course, we drafted the men for this war job; but in the new world nobody is drafted for anything. It is any man's privilege to starve if he feels like it; it is his privilege to go out into the mountains and live on nuts and berries if he can find them. Nobody makes him go anywhere, or makes him work at anything—unless, of course, he is a convicted criminal. To the free citizen all that society has to say is, if he buys any products, he must pay for those products with his own labor, and not with some other man's labor. Of course, he may steal, or cheat, as under capitalism¹⁶; our new world has laws against stealing and cheating, and does its best to enforce them. The difference between the capitalist world and our world is merely that we make it impossible for any man to get money legally without working.

Under these conditions the average man wishes to work, and the only question remaining is, how shall he work? If he wants to work by himself, and in his own way, nobody objects to it. He is able to buy anything he pleases, whether raw materials or finished products. If he wants to buy leather and make shoes after his own pattern, no one stops him, and if he can find anyone to buy these shoes, he can earn his living in that way. He is able to get land for as long a time as he wants it, by paying to the state the full rental¹⁷ value of that land, and if he wants to farm the land, he can do so, and sell his products. As a matter of theory, he is perfectly¹⁸ free to hire others to farm the land for him, or with him. There is no law to prevent it, neither is there any law to prevent his renting a factory and buying machinery, and hiring labor to make shoes.

But, as a matter of practical fact, it is impossible for him to do this, because the community is in the business of making shoes, and on an enormous scale, with great factories run democratically by the workers, and there is very small chance of any private business man being able to draw the workers away from these factories. The community factories have all the latest machinery; they apply the latest methods of scientific management, and they turn out standard shoes at such a rate that private competition is unthinkable. Of course, there may be some special kind of shoes, involving an intellectual element, in which there can be private competition. This kind of manufacture is covered in our second method of payment; but before we discuss it, let us settle the problem of our most important basic industry, which is agriculture.

1 commonwealth   

n.共和国，联邦，共同体

参考例句：

• He is the chairman of the commonwealth of artists.他是艺术家协会的主席。
• Most of the members of the Commonwealth are nonwhite.英联邦的许多成员国不是白人国家。

2 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

3 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

4 banking   

n.银行业，银行学，金融业

参考例句：

• John is launching his son on a career in banking.约翰打算让儿子在银行界谋一个新职位。
• He possesses an extensive knowledge of banking.他具有广博的银行业务知识。

5 illiterate   

adj.文盲的；无知的；n.文盲

参考例句：

• There are still many illiterate people in our country.在我国还有许多文盲。
• I was an illiterate in the old society,but now I can read.我这个旧社会的文盲，今天也认字了。

6 deduction   

n.减除，扣除，减除额；推论，推理，演绎

参考例句：

• No deduction in pay is made for absence due to illness.因病请假不扣工资。
• His deduction led him to the correct conclusion.他的推断使他得出正确的结论。

7 standardized   

adj.标准化的

参考例句：

• We use standardized tests to measure scholastic achievement. 我们用标准化考试来衡量学生的学业成绩。
• The parts of an automobile are standardized. 汽车零件是标准化了的。

8 wholesale   

n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售

参考例句：

• The retail dealer buys at wholesale and sells at retail.零售商批发购进货物，以零售价卖出。
• Such shoes usually wholesale for much less.这种鞋批发出售通常要便宜得多。

9 census   

n.(官方的)人口调查，人口普查

参考例句：

• A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
• The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。

10 machinery   

n.(总称)机械，机器；机构

参考例句：

• Has the machinery been put up ready for the broadcast?广播器材安装完毕了吗？
• Machinery ought to be well maintained all the time.机器应该随时注意维护。

11 elimination   

n.排除，消除，消灭

参考例句：

• Their elimination from the competition was a great surprise.他们在比赛中遭到淘汰是个很大的意外。
• I was eliminated from the 400 metres in the semi-finals.我在400米半决赛中被淘汰。

12 margin   

n.页边空白；差额；余地，余裕；边，边缘

参考例句：

• We allowed a margin of 20 minutes in catching the train.我们有20分钟的余地赶火车。
• The village is situated at the margin of a forest.村子位于森林的边缘。

13 sewers   

n.阴沟，污水管，下水道( sewer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The sewers discharge out at sea. 下水道的污水排入海里。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Another municipal waste problem is street runoff into storm sewers. 有关都市废水的另外一个问题是进入雨水沟的街道雨水。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

14 speculation   

n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机

参考例句：

• Her mind is occupied with speculation.她的头脑忙于思考。
• There is widespread speculation that he is going to resign.人们普遍推测他要辞职。

15 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。

16 capitalism   

n.资本主义

参考例句：

• The essence of his argument is that capitalism cannot succeed.他的论点的核心是资本主义不能成功。
• Capitalism began to develop in Russia in the 19th century.十九世纪资本主义在俄国开始发展。

17 rental   

n.租赁，出租，出租业

参考例句：

• The yearly rental of her house is 2400 yuan.她这房子年租金是2400元。
• We can organise car rental from Chicago O'Hare Airport.我们可以安排提供从芝加哥奥黑尔机场出发的租车服务。

18 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。