The next time we met to listen to Mr. Midith’s interesting narrative
and to his vivid description of the Marsian world was on a pleasant,
calm Sunday afternoon. All nature seemed to be glad and animated. The
earth was covered with green grass. The flowers were blooming. The
ripe strawberries were painting the hillside with their red cheeks.
The verdant foliage was dressing the trees and shrubs with its richest
garments. The clear little brook, not far from Mr. Uwins’ residence,
was sending its water over its pebbly bed toward the mighty ocean. The
birds were singing their songs and building their nests, regardless of
its being Sunday.
“Would it not be pleasant to take a ramble along the running brook,”
said Mrs. Uwins, “and after we find a pleasant, shady place, sit down
on the green grass and have Mr. Midith tell us about their commercial
and mercantile systems. I would like to know how the Marsites carry on
their commerce and mercantile business--how women and children buy and
sell, etc.”
We all agreed to Mrs. Uwins’ proposition of spending some time in
taking a ramble among the trees.
“Mr. Midith, I believe you told us some time ago that the ladies on
Mars enjoy equal privileges with the gentlemen in all respects,” said
Viola with a somewhat mischievous smile. “So we will play just for
this afternoon as though we were Marsites; and as you are not as well
acquainted along the shores of our little brook as I am, I shall take
the liberty of asking you for your company instead of you asking me
for mine. You know it is not fashionable with us for a lady to ask a
gentleman for his company. But, as you say, if you are used to it, it
will not appear rude or forward to you at all.”
“I shall certainly be proud of your kind, guiding hand, for you, no
doubt, have often before strolled in the shade of those trees and are
well acquainted with the lay of the country.”
With this, we all started for the shady brook; even Rev. Dudley seems
to have forgotten that it is Sunday. After wandering for some time,
gathering strawberries, and making bouquets, we came to a fine shade
tree, under which we sat down on the dense matting of grass. After
being seated, Mr. Midith was requested to proceed with his explanation
of the Marsian system of commerce, and how they buy and sell there.
“In order to give you a clear idea of our commercial and mercantile
systems, it becomes necessary to begin at the bottom. Along the
motor-lines, about four miles apart, as stated before (diagram p. 58,
Com. 2), a side-track passes through a large warehouse, store-house,
and factories in which the farm products of the community are stored
away for safekeeping and for transportation. All products from the farm
are hauled into these store-houses with land engines, and from the
store-houses it is taken either to the depots for exportation, to the
mill or factory, or to the kitchen of the ‘big-house’ for consumption.
In these store-houses the land-engines and farming implements are also
kept. The railroad depots are located generally wherever a motor-line
crosses it. The railroads communicate with sea-ports and with all
other parts of the country. Fast electric vessels carry on the foreign
commerce. But foreign commerce is not so extensive now as it formerly
was. Nearly every country now produces its own commodities with
advantage. Domestic commerce is also greatly simplified. There are no
populous cities to which the agricultural products must be shipped; and
from which the agriculturists and inhabitants of country places, under
your system, receive the agricultural implements and other manufactured
commodities. The population, as you see, is almost evenly distributed
over the productive land area from which they obtain their material
subsistence.
“The motor-lines are built, equipped and run by the contiguous
communities between which they are located, except the freight cars,
which each community furnishes and operates for itself. No passenger
fare is charged on a motor. It is presumed that the transportation
between the several communities is nearly equal. For instance, a person
from Community No. 5 rides on our motor-line, and a person from our
community rides on the motor-line of Community 5. So a passenger can
ride on any motor at any time and to any place in his own country at
least, free of charge.
“Our railroads are built and equipped by voluntary subscriptions. When
a certain scope of country wants a railroad, the inhabitants, who feel
so inclined, of the adjacent communities which are interested in the
road will advance the money. A few communities, each subscribing 75,000
days’ labor, can build quite a piece of road. Of course each individual
advances as much as he wishes. The community, as such, takes no part in
it; all such is left to the individual’s own choice.
“The work of building railroads is done by gangs of men, who make
that their profession, and who are provided with the very best tools,
graders, and everything necessary to produce the best results with the
least amount of labor. After the roads are built and equipped, they
are operated at 10 per cent. above cost until all the subscriptions
have been paid back to those who advanced them, after which they are
always operated at cost. Every one who rides on the train pays fare,
the same as you do. The only difference is, that we ride at cost on an
economically operated railroad, while you are paying the stockholders a
large dividend on an extravagantly operated one.
“I think I have already told you that the motor-lines and railroads are
brilliantly lighted with electric light when dark.
“So we notice briefly that the products from the farm are hauled with
land engines to the warehouses; from these warehouses it is conveyed
by motors through every ‘big-house’ on the line, where it can be
unloaded for use, or can be transported to a depot for exportation. At
these depots, of course, we receive also the imported goods brought by
the railroads. As the motor-line passes through every ‘big-house,’ a
passenger is enabled, without going out doors in the rain or snow, to
step on a motor, which will take him to a depot where he can board a
fast train, by which he can reach any part of the country in a short
time. All our motor cars and other vehicles are almost noiseless. The
boxing never heat and wear for years under the highest speed.”
“Your commercial department is, indeed, very perfect and convenient,”
said Mr. Uwins. “Every person in your whole country, or even in your
whole world, can travel to the abode of any other person without going
out doors or in the dark.”
“Yes, papa,” said Roland, “and one can ride on the motor all he likes
for nothing; that strikes me very favorably.”
“Now let me tell you how our mercantile business is conducted; how we
buy and sell,” said Mr. Midith.
“But the mercantile business we shall not be able to understand _fully_
until you are acquainted with our monetary system, or medium of
exchange.
“We have _three_ kinds of parties that do business: 1. The collectivity
which we call the community. 2. The collectivity which we call the
family. 3. The individual.
“_One_ ‘big-house’ of every community, we call, in short, the ‘Com,’
meaning in our language a common business place; a place where the
community’s business is transacted, such as selling the products of the
_community_, which are not needed for home consumption; issuing money,
receiving the remittances from all families’ and communities’ sales,
paying all the families’ and communities’ bills, doing the printing
for the community, etc. Under the head of government, I shall further
describe its function.
“Each family of a community buys for its own use whatever it needs,
such articles as dry goods, groceries, furniture, etc., and the
individuals buy at the family stores. The storekeeper buys for
the store what he thinks the people may want. So we see that each
individual buys and sells with his own money, such articles as
clothing, meals, railroad tickets, barber and laundry tickets,
furniture for his private apartment, private luxuries, and all other
things that he appropriates for his private use. The individual has no
dictator; no censor.
“We have no such a thing as profit in our mercantile system, or any
other of our systems. Every article is sold at cost, including, of
course, the cost of buying and selling; and nothing but _productive
labor_ will buy it. Profit is wrong because it is always _paid by_ a
person who receives nothing for it; and it is paid _to_ the person
who does nothing for it. Of course, we have no _law_ prohibiting the
taking of profit, but under a _healthy, free_ competition, profit is
gradually and entirely eliminated by the practically equal opportunity
enjoyed by each individual and by each community. No individual or
community holds any monopolistic advantages over another. A stranger
can buy as cheaply in any family store as a member of the community
can. Prices, including transportation charges, are nearly uniform, not
only all over the same country, but all over the surface of Mars. You
also want to bear in mind that under keen, _free_ competition and a
comparatively uniform supply, prices rarely ever fluctuate. Thus you
see we have no place for a speculator and a schemer. He would not make
enough, with his profession, in ten years to buy a meal. Nothing less
than a fair, honest share of productive labor receives the approval of
one’s companions; and no person would want to bear the burden of public
contempt in order to avoid his fair share of the labor, when a day’s
labor is so short, the labor so easy and pleasant, the compensation so
abundant.
“Every ‘big-house’ has a mercantile department, as I have already
explained, in which nearly all kinds of goods, such as an individual
wants, are kept for sale. The men, women and children who work in the
sales department receive wages, or pay, the same as a miner, a farmer
or a conductor. They are not interested whether they sell or not. They
derive no benefit from misrepresenting goods. It is the same to them
whether they sell a cheap article or a high priced one. They derive
no benefit from lying, from suppressing the truth, or from otherwise
deceiving or persuading a customer to buy an article he really does not
want.
“If an individual wants a knife or a watch he buys it, whenever he
sees fit, either in the store of his own ‘big-house’ or in some other
‘big-house’ of his community, or in any other community or country
where he may be when he wants the article. If he wants an article of
furniture he does the same. If he wants a suit, he can either buy it
ready-made, or he can select the cloth and get the tailor to make it.
Nearly all suits are tailor made, for an expert tailor in our own
house can make it as cheap as it can be made anywhere. When a lady
wants a garment, she either gets it ready-made, or she selects the
goods and gets it made by a tailor or seamstress, who have all the
conveniences, who are proficient in their work, and who can do the
work in much less time than an inexperienced person who wants the
garment. Each laborer works with advantage in his own sphere. This may,
I think, be abundantly verified by noticing the fit of your ladies’
garments, which are often made by the wearers, who are inexperienced
seamstresses, who, as you term it, are too frequently compelled by
the force of your social circumstances to be ‘jack of all trades and
master of none.’ Your incomplete division of labor, your single-handed
efforts, and your inconveniences resulting from them necessarily
produce a small return for the labor expended; and the products which
it does produce under such conditions are rude and unfinished. Think,
if every one had to make his own watch, how long it would take one, and
what a watch it would be after one had it completed.
“At the crossings of the motor-lines we have large motor depots erected
and maintained by the four contiguous communities who use it as a depot
for shipping and as a storehouse.
“Pardon me, ladies and gentlemen, for telling you that I feel unable
to give you a clear idea of our commercial and mercantile system,
without giving you first a brief description of our system of
intercommunication.”
“I am sure we would enjoy that very much,” said Viola. “It will indeed
be interesting for us to know how and with whom you travel, to whom you
write, etc.”
“Very well,” said Mr. Midith as he began: “All apartments of the
‘big-house’ are connected by telephone with one another, with all the
‘big-houses’ and other buildings of the community, and with all the
other communities of the whole country. By this system an individual
in his private apartment, or any other apartment or building, can
communicate with any community, or with any individual of any
community. This enables any man, woman, or child to talk with any
other man, woman, or child of the whole nation; or, one person may
communicate a message to millions at the same time by all listening.
“Telegraphy is now rarely used. Owing to the double tracks of railroads
and motors, little use is made of it there. Our improved noiseless
telephone is much superior. Our phonographs have been wonderfully
improved. They speak, sing, play, etc., as loudly and distinctly as the
original voice or instrument. An author can read his production in its
presence, and the phonograph will repeat it clearly and distinctly as
often as the machine is set in motion. They largely perform the work of
stenographers.
“The mail is carried _to_ and _from_ the ‘big-houses’ on the
railroads or motors. From there the railroads carry it rapidly
to its destination. When the mail arrives at the ‘big-house,’ it
is immediately distributed by mail carriers to each individual’s
apartment, where the mail carrier drops it through an aperture in the
wall into a letter box on the inside of the individual’s room. And
the inmate drops his out-going mail likewise to the outside of his
apartment for the mail carrier to take. In this manner a postoffice
is located in every individual’s apartment. Instead of having every
individual run to the postoffice, often for nothing, as you do, we have
a few mail carriers carry the mail to every individual who receives
any. Mail arrives and departs at least four or five times daily. You
can, no doubt, see what an immense amount of labor we save, and what a
promptness and convenience we insure.”
“That is, no doubt, a grand system, Mr. Midith,” said Rev. Dudley, who
seemed almost ready to start in pursuit of a similar system. “It seems
that all your social and industrial departments fit so well together
that one can find no break in it anywhere. Everybody has a postoffice,
a telephone and a motor-line in his own house, and yet no one lives in
a crowded city nor in a lonely country.”
“But, Rev. Dudley, you know as yet only little of the freedom and
harmony that prevails in our social and industrial world. You will find
as we go along with our explanation, that all of man’s career, from his
genesis until his death, is a comparative history of kindness, freedom,
harmony and happiness.
“On the first of every year an invoice and census are taken by
each ‘big-house,’ and from these a community invoice and census is
summarized. The summarized invoice exhibits the total commodities on
hand of the whole community. It also exhibits the increase or decrease
of any particular kind of goods, as well as the total increase or
decrease of wealth and capital during the last year. By the aid of this
invoice the individual, the family and the community can ascertain
in what direction their labor can be advantageously increased or
diminished during the current year. If we find by the invoice that the
wealth of the community is diminishing, we have to lengthen our day’s
labor so as to produce more; and if the wealth increases faster than
we desire, we shorten the day’s labor. Now do not forget here that all
wealth must be produced by the application of labor to land, and that
anything which is not produced by labor is not wealth.
“The annual census which is taken by each ‘big-house’ reports the
population of the family, male and female; the number of births and
deaths; the commodities consumed, raised, manufactured, mined,
transported and bought and sold. The number of inventions; the books
written and printed, and all other useful items. The census of the
families are summarized like the invoices. The invoice and census of
each community contains an estimate of the current year’s production,
consumption and transportation, beginning with the first of the year.
“Each community prints annually about 30,000 or more copies of its own
invoices and census, and sends a copy to those communities, both in and
out of its own nation, with which it is most likely to do business.
In this manner each community receives about 30,000 census pamphlets
from that many other communities from all parts of the world. Each one
of our grand divisions of land or nation, as you call them, has also
a Fa-no, which, in our language, means a continental business place.
This Fano is a magnificent line of buildings, located somewhere near
the center of the ‘nation.’ In this Fano _samples_ of all merchantable
commodities are kept on exhibition, and the price given on the sample.
This capacious Fano is divided off into grand departments. For example:
In the carpet department all communities that manufacture carpets have
samples of all their grades of carpets on exhibition there; and every
sample bears the name and grade, the selling price and the number of
the community which has it for sale. Similarly are there departments
for all other commodities--lumber, books, clocks, sugar, oil, sofas,
vehicles, shoes, plows, wheat, iron, aluminium, engines, etc., etc.
“Thus, you see, we have a continuous national exhibition in the Fano.
Every community of the ‘nation,’ and even of foreign ‘nations,’ has one
or more representatives, called Fa-no-ers, there. These Fanoers are
at the Fano only for the commercial interest of their community. As
stated before, no commodities other than the mere samples are kept in
the Fano. Those who make purchases from a community’s samples kept at
the Fano, have the commodities purchased, directly shipped to them from
the community of whose samples the goods were purchased. The purchasing
individual or family, or community, can order them, or they can get the
selling community’s Fanoer to attend to the ordering.
“Now let me tell you how we make our purchases at the Fano. When an
individual, a family or a community desires to purchase an article,
say, for instance, a piano, and cannot procure the desired article for
a suitable price near at home, the purchaser informs the ‘Fanoer’ what
he wants, and directs the Fanoer to make the purchase, or he informs
the purchaser where such an article can be purchased to the best
advantage. The ‘Fanoer’ now visits the piano department, where he finds
prices, and sample pianos of all description, also a description of
each piano. From all of these he makes his selection, and informs the
purchaser of the price and in what community they are manufactured and
kept. The purchaser then orders it from the ‘Com’ of that community,
if the purchase was not ordered to be made directly by the ‘Fanoer.’
And just so with every other article of commerce. Thus you see every
individual, family, and community get the benefit of the best goods,
the latest inventions and improvements, and the lowest current prices.”
“Are the masses of the Marsites well-informed on the current market
prices, and the latest improvements and inventions?” asked Mr. Uwins.
“Yes, the Marsites are all well informed commercially,” continued Mr.
Midith. “Our intercommunication is so practicable and expedient that
every one is well informed on current prices, and especially on the
prices of those articles one wishes to purchase. Besides the means
of travel, telephone, phonograph, invoices, correspondence and oral
communication, we have a daily newspaper or price list issued at the
‘Fano.’ This price list quotes prices and names and briefly describes
every new sample that is brought in and taken out of the ‘Fano.’ You
must remember that, under _free_ competition and a _healthy_ supply
and demand, prices, with us, do not fluctuate arbitrarily like they do
under your _monopolistic_ laws, which create an unreliable market and
fictitious values. Hence we can be and are all well informed on market
prices.
“But the above are not the only advantageous means of our commercial
transactions. Just as we have a ‘Fano’ in each grand division or
‘nation’ to adjust and facilitate the national commerce, so do we have
a world’s business point which we call ‘Mo-da-no,’ meaning in our
language _world-wide_. The ‘Modano’ is a series of massive buildings,
in which a never-ending World’s Exposition is conducted. It is managed
on the same principles as the ‘Fano,’ and is to the whole of Mars what
the ‘Fano’ is to its grand division.
“The ‘Modano’ is the grandest structure on Mars. Its architecture
is too massive, too esthetic, and too grand to be accurately and
adequately described in terms of any of your languages with which I
am familiar. One who has seen no better architectural skill than the
earth now furnishes, can form no accurate conception of the magnitude
and grandeur of our magnificent ‘Modano.’
“It contains samples of all human skill and industry, not only of
modern commodities, but of the ancient and antiquated as well. Large
departments for the receptions of new commodities and inventions are
from time to time erected. All communities of Mars are represented
there by ‘Modanoers.’ Samples, prices, and generally quantity and
quality, of all commercial goods are on exhibition at the ‘Modano.’ And
everything is kept as clean as a parlor. I may say that the ‘Modano’
is the pride of every Marsian heart, and more wealth is voluntarily
offered for its erection and maintenance than can possibly be expended.
Nearly every youth and adult annually visits a number of ‘Fanoes’ and
the ‘Modano.’ The visitor almost universally records his name in the
donation-book, and drops into a box a sealed envelope bearing his name
and containing the sum donated, which corresponds with the sum opposite
his name in the donation-book. This is voluntary taxation, of which I
shall tell you more under the head of Government.
“Thus you see at once that we require no traveling salesmen, whose
wages and expense are taxed to the goods they sell, and this sum, in
the United States alone, is perhaps nearly equal to the value of your
entire wheat crop of the United States. By our almost complete system
of transportation and intercommunication, it is easy to buy and sell,
and to receive and send news. We all want to buy of that community
which sells the _best_ goods for the least pay.
“The floating palace of the ocean, the powerful and safe trains;
the motors which run through every ‘big-house,’ warehouse, factory,
mill and depot; the electric farm engines, the various bicycles and
carriages, the safe and rapid transit of mail, the universal use of
telephone and phonograph, the exchange of invoices and censuses, the
Fanos and Modano, the price lists and newspapers, etc.; all aid and
combine in making it an almost perfect system of transportation,
intercommunication and business transaction. Such in brief is our
commercial and mercantile system.
“Let me here again remind you that it is not _competition_, like some
of your economists try to make your people believe, but monopoly which
makes your earth such a cruel, poor world to live in. _Profit_ is one
form of monopoly in trade and commerce. You will notice that in our
social and industrial world there is a keen competition everywhere. One
community, family and individual endeavor to do better and more work
in the same time than another. But a competitor is always a laborer,
winning his race by his superior merit. He always earns his own living,
besides giving the benefit of his superior merit to the world at large.
“But notice the difference in the profit-taker. He receives something
for which he does nothing, and the person who pays him the profit,
pays for something for which he receives nothing. For this reason
a profit-taker may grow rich by living an idle life, by being a
social parasite, like all your profit-takers are as such. He simply
appropriates what others have already earned. A competitor never lives
from the labor of another. The community which makes the best and
cheapest shoes, sells the most, and this is just what it should be, for
every one should be allowed to buy as cheap as he can. Those competing
communities in the shoe business, of which there are, of course many,
must either devise means of making better and cheaper shoes, or they
must engage in other business for which they are better adapted.
Under this keen competition every community will naturally drift into
those occupations for which it is best adapted and in which it is
most proficient. Just as it is with the community, so it is with the
family and with the individual. The profit-taker endeavors to achieve
his victory by monopolistically tearing down his neighbor, while under
freedom a competitor relies on the superiority of his own merits
without interfering with the race of his neighbor. Competition is the
only power of which we know that can gently shift every person, family,
community, etc., into that social and industrial sphere for which each
is best adapted. A competitor, under freedom, is never robbed of what
he produces; he always possesses at least as much wealth as he would if
he were the only inhabitant of a world. Monopoly, in its various forms,
is the thief and robber.
“Let us in a few words compare your commercial and mercantile system
with ours, not with a view of fault-finding, not with a view of casting
reflections, but with a view of instruction. We all need all the
information we can get; if it is not in one thing it is in another.
Nobody knows it all. Very likely there is much more that we do not know
than the little we do know. Perhaps there is no better evidence of
mental narrowness than our ostentatious pretention of knowing it all.
With this view in mind let us proceed.
“You either live in the country, almost cut off from trade and
commerce, or you live in a crowded city or town where the smoke and
offensive odor enters every crevice, door and window, and where you
are more or less starving for want of wholesome air. Where scarcely
a vegetation opens its mouth to exhale the life-giving oxygen and to
inhale the excessive carbonic acid which impairs the health of animal
life. Where a portion of mankind are living an idle, wasteful life in
a palace built by the labor of the poor, and another large class of
industrious persons are eking out a miserable existence in a poor,
filthy hovel. Under your profit system each must grab all he can or
he must starve. In order that a few may amass comparatively worthless
fortunes, many are trampled in the mire who can never rise again under
the burden of your social and industrial system. Perhaps from one-half
to three-fourths of your commercial and mercantile work is unproductive
and destructive labor.
“Your railroad corporations not unfrequently receive large public
donations of land, etc., to build the roads with, and after they are
built they become the gambling stock on which large dividends are paid
by the hand of labor. You have so many places of business where goods
are spoiling for want of customers; and with your monopolistic profit
system, every merchant is trying to freeze out his neighbor. We have
no ‘middle-men’ who have to live from profit which must be taxed to
the goods when sold to the consumer or producer; no army of mercantile
schemers, the successful ones of whom live and grow rich from the labor
and wrecked fortunes of others; no traveling salesmen; no countless
warehouses and elevators, in which the rich speculator stores the grain
and other commodities in order to create a fictitious market. Each
one of our communities buys and preserves what it needs for its own
consumption directly from some other community; and so each community
also sells what it has to spare to some other purchasing community.
Thus each purchase and sale is a wholesale, even if it amounts to only
a nickle’s worth. With you a business man must live from the profits of
his sales. He must sell or become impoverished. Under such a condition,
in order to save himself from bankruptcy, he is tempted to lie, to
misrepresent on the one hand and to suppress the truth on the other; he
is tempted to persuade customers by deceptive means to purchase things
they do not really want. He must strain every nerve and muscle to keep
want from his door. His wife and children in many cases, where the
business place is remote from the residence, scarcely ever see him. In
the morning he leaves early and in the evening he returns late. Many of
your business men have lost nearly all their social qualities and are
little more than mere business worms with the shadow of death hovering
on their countenances. Your business man is a mental slave also. In
order to be successful in his business he must either be ignorant and
superstitious himself, living in a little narrow, mental world, or he
must tacitly, and sometimes even avowedly, sanction the ignorance and
superstition of his customers. For, very likely, if he expresses his
honest convictions concomitant with a higher state of culture in all
directions, he offends some of his customers from the _profit_ of whose
purchases he must live, and financial ruin would be the result.”
“These are all facts,” said Mr. Uwins; “they are no exaggerations, and
many of our foremost thinkers have seen them more or less clearly for
some time; but no one thus far seems to know how to make the proper
adjustment with our present amount of intelligence.”
“I think it is now getting to be time to direct our course toward
home,” said Mr. Midith.
At this we all rose to our feet, and prepared to stroll homeward.
“When we started from home you asked me for my company, Viola,” said
Mr. Midith. “You claimed that you were better acquainted in the woods,
and would, therefore, according to the customs of Mars, volunteer to
be my guide. But now, in returning, I shall ask you for your company;
of course, you can accept or reject, just as you desire. This is also
according to the customs of Mars.”
“Why, Mr. Midith, I am sure I shall accept your company with the
greatest of pleasure,” said Viola, as we started toward home.