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.
Finally I said, "The idea of such an extension of the functions of
government is, to say the least, rather overwhelming."
"Extension!" he repeated, "where is the extension?"
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Human nature itself must have changed very much," I said.
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"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."
"Service, now, I suppose, is compulsory upon all," I suggested.
"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."
"Is the term of service in this industrial army for life?"
"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."