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THE NEXT STEP
A Plan for Economic World Federation
by
SCOTT NEARING
Author of
_The American Empire_
Ridgewood, New Jersey
Nellie Seeds Nearing
1922
* * * * * *
_By the same author_
WAGES IN THE UNITED STATES.
FINANCING THE WAGE EARNER FAMILY.
REDUCING THE COST OF LIVING.
ANTHRACITE.
POVERTY AND RICHES.
SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT.
SOCIAL RELIGION.
WOMEN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS.
(Collaboration with Nellie Nearing)
THE SUPER RACE.
ELEMENTS OF ECONOMICS.
THE NEW EDUCATION.
ECONOMICS.
COMMUNITY CIVICS.
(Collaboration with Jessie Field)
SOLUTION OF THE CHILD LABOR PROBLEM.
SOCIAL SANITY.
THE AMERICAN EMPIRE.
* * * * * *
Copyright, 1922
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
_This book is dedicated to the task of emancipating the human race from
economic servitude_
"The community needs service first, regardless of who gets the profits,
because its life depends on the service it gets."
"Organizing for Work."
H.L. GANTT.
"It is not common language, literature and tradition alone, nor yet
clearly defined or strategic frontiers, that will in the future give
stability to the boundary lines of Europe, but rather such distribution
of its supplies of coal and iron as will prevent any of the great
nations of Europe becoming strong enough to dominate or absorb all the
others."
"The Economic Basis of an Enduring Peace."
C.W. MACFARLANE.
"Men cannot exist in their present numbers on the earth without world
co-operation."
"Our Social Heritage."
GRAHAM WALLAS.
"The real way, surely, in which to organize the interests of producers
is by working out a delimitation of industry, and confiding the care of
its problems to those most concerned with them. This is, in fact, a kind
of federalism in which the powers represented are not areas but
functions."
"Foundations of Sovereignty."
H.J. LASKI.
SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT
Men progress in proportion as they are able to fit themselves for life,
and to fit life to themselves. Both processes go on unceasingly.
Recent economic changes have brought the remotest parts of the world
into close contact with "civilization" at the same time that they have
increased the dependence of one part of the world upon another part.
Oddly enough, this interdependence has been intensified under a system
of society that deified competition. The conflicts, inevitably resulting
from such a contradiction, have taken a terrible toll in life and
well-being, and have left Europe in chaos.
The successful organization of the life of the world is impossible
without the organization of its economic affairs. For the present plan
of competition between groups, classes and nations there must be
substituted a means of co-operative living. The organization of a
producers society will provide that means. Local initiative must be
preserved; self-government in economic affairs must be assured, and the
economic activities of the world must be federated in such a way that
all economic problems of world concern will be brought under some
central authority which is representative of the various interests
involved at the same time that it controls the disposition of economic
life. A world parliament composed of representatives elected by the
workers in the various producing groups would provide such a central
authority, and would furnish the means of directing the economic
experiments of the race.
Economic emancipation is the objective. The means for its attainment is
a society organized in terms of producers groups, and living in
accordance with the highest known standards of intelligent social
direction.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER HEADINGS
1. _A World Economic Program_
CHAPTER I. THE NEW ECONOMIC LIFE 13
CHAPTER II. THE ECONOMIC MUDDLE 28
2. _World Economic Organization_
III. ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS 51
IV. ECONOMIC SELF-GOVERNMENT 76
V. A WORLD PRODUCERS' FEDERATION 100
VI. WORLD ADMINISTRATION 119
3. _Economic Progress_
CHAPTER VII. TRIAL AND ERROR IN ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 135
VIII. ECONOMIC LIBERATION 151
WHAT TO READ 164
SECTION HEADINGS
CHAPTER I. THE NEW ECONOMIC LIFE 13
1. The Historic Present.
2. Economic Needs.
3. Worldizing Economic Activity.
4. The Basis of a World Program.
5. The League of Nations Failure.
6. Axioms of Economic Reorganization.