“A few remarks concerning _wealth_ will be of great value in helping
you to understand what you requested me to tell you some future time,”
said Mr. Midith; “and if you wish, I will give you in brief the Marsian
idea of wealth, before we proceed to our afternoon work.”
Parents, visitors and children all eagerly desired Mr. Midith to
proceed, which he did thus:
“The Marsites believe that genuine wealth consists: 1. Of
organized-self--a sound _body_ and a healthy, vigorous _mind_. 2.
Of _material_ wealth--food, clothing, shelter, luxuries and the
instruments of their production and distribution--tools, machinery,
factories, railroads, etc. And 3. Of _mental_ wealth--thought, love,
kindness, the so-called morality and freedom.
“We claim that all wealth comes, either directly or indirectly, _from_
the earth, or _out_ of it by the application of labor, and that only
which is produced by labor is wealth, and belongs exclusively to the
producer. To illustrate, the material composing our body was once
inorganic matter. The plant organized it. We eat, digest and assimilate
the plant out of which our tissues are built. The crude material out of
which our clothes are made is produced by the earth. The cotton plant
that grows on the earth produced the cotton. The sheep, on whose back
the wool grows, lives on the grass, etc., which is produced by the
earth. Our books, houses, shoes, hats, and our physical organs, which
perform their wonderfully complex functions, all come, either directly
or indirectly, out of the earth, air and ocean in a crude form. Then
they are shaped by the hand of labor into the proper form and become
wealth.
“By labor we manufacture clothes, write books, raise, gather and lay
up food, build houses, construct railroads, improve land, acquire and
maintain a sound body and a healthy, cultivated mind. The storehouse
of thought, kindness, love and freedom is also filled by labor and
exertion. All these mental acquisitions are therefore constituent parts
of genuine wealth--wealth of the most precious kind, for material
wealth is easily acquired when we are rich in faultless organized-self
and in mental wealth.
“The air we breathe is not wealth, because it is not produced by labor.
The wild apple and plum on the tree are not wealth, because no human
labor has been expended in the production of them. But the picked
apple of the same tree, in the hand of the consumer, or in his cellar
is wealth; he picked or stored it away for future use, which required
labor. Sunshine and rain, native grass and water in its native bed
or channel, are not wealth. Land in its natural state is not wealth,
because it was not produced by labor. There was land before there was
human labor. But all improvement made on land by labor is wealth and
belongs exclusively to the person who made the improvement.
“All wealth, then, organized-self, material and mental, comes
ultimately out of the inorganic earth (air and water), and requires
labor and effort to produce them, and is wealth only so far as they
required labor in their production.”
“Have the inhabitants of Mars always been as wealthy as they now are?”
asked Mrs. Uwins.
“Oh, no; we have steadily been growing richer in all the component
parts of genuine wealth. Ages ago our world was poor in sound bodies,
because in many cases we had ill-health on account of overwork; in
other cases we were burdened with ill-health for lack of proper and
sufficient exercise; in still other cases we did not enjoy good health
on account of poor and insufficient subsistence. Uncleanliness,
irregularity, licentiousness, jealousy, etc., were other causes of
ill-health; and lastly, perhaps, all had inherited a more or less
feeble and diseased constitution, consequent from the constant
violations of the so-called natural laws by our numerous successive
ancestors.
“Under our former monopolistic, social and industrial system, our world
was poor in material wealth--food, clothing, shelter and luxuries.
Thousands upon thousands of industrious people in every county were
forced idlers, and consequently poor or paupers. They were hungry,
ragged, cold and unclean. Want and the fear of want forced them to work
so hard and so long daily that cleanliness and intellectual culture had
become a burden to them. They were merely industrial slaves, earning
the material wealth for the rich who spent their lives largely in
wasteful idleness.
“At that early period, then, in the history of evolution, when our
social and industrial system was as defective as your present one,
when but a single couple lived together in a small house, and when
individual efforts, instead of voluntary co-operation, were the
recognized methods of acquiring wealth, we were poor in mental wealth.
There was then little thought, love, kindness and freedom. We met with
ignorance, cruelty, wrong, superstition and slavery of some kind in
all directions. Our ancestors blindly trampled in the mire the best
portions of bodily and mental wealth, while they were only in pursuit
of gold.
“Under the old social and industrial system there was a continual
fear in all directions; timid thinking, avaricious accumulation of
gold, industrial, religious and domestic slavery, antagonistic strife,
jealous feelings, disease, ignorance, crime and poverty.
“There can be very little true love, kindness and prosperity as long
as one family, sect, party, organization and nation endeavors to build
itself up by tearing down others. Antagonism involves an expenditure
of energy. As a rule your banker’s child is forbidden to play and
associate with the hod-carrier’s. The Catholic disapproves of, and
often despises the Protestant, and the Protestant the Catholic. The
Christian, the Pagan and _vice versa_. The Republican and Democrat
condemn each other. Instead of love, kindness and harmony, there is
almost universal hatred and antagonism.
“Gradually and slowly we learned that, under such conditions, we were
poor indeed! During the lapse of ages, we learned by sad experience
that all good acts contain in themselves a reward of happiness, and
all bad acts contain in themselves a punishment of misery. By a
continual and positive reward of the right, and by a continual and
positive punishment of the wrong did we at last learn to grope our way
from the old antagonistic system to our present system of voluntary,
co-operative individualism.
“From my foregoing remarks you will easily see that your idea of wealth
and that of the Marsites do not correspond.
“You class many things not produced by labor as wealth; for instance,
land and money as such. We call nothing wealth which is not produced by
labor. With us our communities’ average productive labor is the basis
of wealth. Our wealth is a _compound_, composed of three elements,
namely, organized-self, material wealth, and mental wealth. Wealth as
considered by your masses is an _element_ composed of material wealth
only--dollars, houses, books, land, railroads, bonds, etc.
“You call a person rich when he has many dollars, no matter what his
other attainments and surroundings may be. Your so-called rich men
may be the dupes of ignorance, cruelty, slavery and superstition;
they may work themselves and their families to premature graves; they
may scheme the bread out of the mouths of the still more ignorant and
poverty-stricken ones; they may be surrounded by hovels and extreme
ignorance and poverty; they may, every night, be in danger of being
robbed and murdered by their cold, hungry neighbors who may be forced
idlers, and still you call them rich, only because they claim to own a
few dollars. We believe that all men are poor who are not the owners of
a healthy body, a sound mind, and an abundance of material subsistence,
which can be obtained only in a world where all are comparatively rich
in this kind of wealth.
“According to your idea of wealth, _avarice_ is a sin, because the rich
_accumulate_ their millions by robbing the poor. No man can _earn_ a
million dollars. According to our idea of wealth, the most avaricious
person is the best, for he equally works to the highest interest and
good of himself and his fellow-man. No man, in our opinion, can be rich
in a poor, ignorant world.”