A TWENTIETH-CENTURY BANK PARLOR.
The formalities at the bank proved to be very simple. Dr. Leete
introduced me to the superintendent, and the rest followed as a matter of
course, the whole process not taking three minutes. I was informed that
the annual credit of the adult citizen for that year was $4,000, and that
the portion due me for the remainder of the year, it being the latter
part of September, was $1,075.41. Taking vouchers to the amount of $300,
I left the rest on deposit precisely as I should have done at one of the
nineteenth-century banks in drawing money for present use. The
transaction concluded, Mr. Chapin, the superintendent, invited me into
his office.
"How does our banking system strike you as compared with that of your
day?" he asked.
"It has one manifest advantage from the point of view of a penniless
_revenant_ like myself," I said--"namely, that one receives a credit
without having made a deposit; otherwise I scarcely know enough of it to
give an opinion."
"When you come to be more familiar with our banking methods," said the
superintendent. "I think you will be struck with their similarity to your
own. Of course, we have no money and nothing answering to money, but the
whole science of banking from its inception was preparing the way for the
abolition of money. The only way, really, in which our system differs
from yours is that every one starts the year with the same balance to his
credit and that this credit is not transferable. As to requiring deposits
before accounts are opened, we are necessarily quite as strict as your
bankers were, only in our case the people, collectively, make the deposit
for all at once. This collective deposit is made up of such provisions of
different commodities and such installations for the various public
services as are expected to be necessary. Prices or cost estimates are
put on these commodities and services, and the aggregate sum of the
prices being divided by the population gives the amount of the citizen's
personal credit, which is simply his aliquot share of the commodities and
services available for the year. No doubt, however, Dr. Leete has told
you all about this."
"But I was not here to be included in the estimate of the year," I said.
"I hope that my credit is not taken out of other people's."
"You need feel no concern," replied the superintendent. "While it is
astonishing how variations in demand balance one another when great
populations are concerned, yet it would be impossible to conduct so big a
business as ours without large margins. It is the aim in the production
of perishable things, and those in which fancy often changes, to keep as
little ahead of the demand as possible, but in all the important staples
such great surpluses are constantly carried that a two years' drought
would not affect the price of non-perishable produce, while an unexpected
addition of several millions to the population could be taken care of at
any time without disturbance."
"Dr. Leete has told me," I said, "that any part of the credit not used by
a citizen during the year is canceled, not being good for the next year.
I suppose that is to prevent the possibility of hoarding, by which the
equality of your economic condition might be undermined."
"It would have the effect to prevent such hoarding, certainly," said the
superintendent, "but it is otherwise needful to simplify the national
bookkeeping and prevent confusion. The annual credit is an order on a
specific provision available during a certain year. For the next year a
new calculation with somewhat different elements has to be made, and to
make it the books must be balanced and all orders canceled that have not
been presented, so that we may know just where we stand."
"What, on the other hand, will happen if I run through my credit before
the year is out?"
The superintendent smiled. "I have read," he said, "that the spendthrift
evil was quite a serious one in your day. Our system has the advantage
over yours that the most incorrigible spendthrift can not trench on his
principal, which consists in his indivisible equal share in the capital
of the nation. All he can at most do is to waste the annual dividend.
Should you do this, I have no doubt your friends will take care of you,
and if they do not you may be sure the nation will, for we have not the
strong stomachs that enabled our forefathers to enjoy plenty with hungry
people about them. The fact is, we are so squeamish that the knowledge
that a single individual in the nation was in want would keep us all
awake nights. If you insisted on being in need, you would have to hide
away for the purpose.
"Have you any idea," I asked, "how much this credit of $4,000 would have
been equal to in purchasing power in 1887?"
"Somewhere about $6,000 or $7,000, I should say," replied Mr. Chapin. "In
estimating the economic position of the citizen you must consider that a
great variety of services and commodities are now supplied gratuitously
on public account, which formerly individuals had to pay for, as, for
example, water, light, music, news, the theatre and opera, all sorts of
postal and electrical communications, transportation, and other things
too numerous to detail."
"Since you furnish so much on public or common account, why not furnish
everything in that way? It would simplify matters, I should say."
"We think, on the contrary, that it would complicate the administration,
and certainly it would not suit the people as well. You see, while we
insist on equality we detest uniformity, and seek to provide free play to
the greatest possible variety of tastes in our expenditure."
Thinking I might be interested in looking them over, the superintendent
had brought into the office some of the books of the bank. Without having
been at all expert in nineteenth-century methods of bookkeeping, I was
much impressed with the extreme simplicity of these accounts compared
with any I had been familiar with. Speaking of this, I added that it
impressed me the more, as I had received an impression that, great as
were the superiorities of the national co-operative system over our way
of doing business, it must involve a great increase in the amount of
bookkeeping as compared with what was necessary under the old system. The
superintendent and Dr. Leete looked at each other and smiled.
"Do you know, Mr. West," said the former, "it strikes us as very odd that
you should have that idea? We estimate that under our system one
accountant serves where dozens were needed in your day."
"But," said I, "the nation has now a separate account with or for every
man, woman, and child in the country."
"Of course," replied the superintendent, "but did it not have the same in
your day? How else could it have assessed and collected taxes or exacted
a dozen other duties from citizens? For example, your tax system alone
with its inquisitions, appraisements, machinery of collection and
penalties was vastly more complex than the accounts in these books before
you, which consist, as you see, in giving to every person the same credit
at the beginning of the year, and afterward simply recording the
withdrawals without calculations of interest or other incidents whatever.
In fact, Mr. West, so simple and invariable are the conditions that the
accounts are kept automatically by a machine, the accountant merely
playing on a keyboard."
"But I understand that every citizen has a record kept also of his
services as the basis of grading and regrading."
"Certainly, and a most minute one, with most careful guards against error
or unfairness. But it is a record having none of the complications of one
of your money or wages accounts for work done, but is rather like the
simple honor records of your educational institutions by which the
ranking of the students was determined."
"But the citizen also has relations with the public stores from which he
supplies his needs?"
"Certainly, but not a relation of account. As your people would have
said, all purchases are for cash only--that is, on the credit card."
"There remains," I persisted, "the accounting for goods and services
between the stores and the productive departments and between the several
departments."
"Certainly; but the whole system being under one head and all the parts
working together with no friction and no motive for any indirection, such
accounting is child's work compared with the adjustment of dealings
between the mutually suspicious private capitalists, who divided among
themselves the field of business in your day, and sat up nights devising
tricks to deceive, defeat, and overreach one another."
"But how about the elaborate statistics on which you base the
calculations that guide production? There at least is need of a good deal
of figuring."
"Your national and State governments," replied Mr. Chapin, "published
annually great masses of similar statistics, which, while often very
inaccurate, must have cost far more trouble to accumulate, seeing that
they involved an unwelcome inquisition into the affairs of private
persons instead of a mere collection of reports from the books of
different departments of one great business. Forecasts of probable
consumption every manufacturer, merchant, and storekeeper had to make in
your day, and mistakes meant ruin. Nevertheless, he could but guess,
because he had no sufficient data. Given the complete data that we have,
and a forecast is as much increased in certainty as it is simplified in
difficulty."
"Kindly spare me any further demonstration of the stupidity of my
criticism."
"Dear me, Mr. West, there is no question of stupidity. A wholly new
system of things always impresses the mind at first sight with an effect
of complexity, although it may be found on examination to be simplicity
itself. But please do not stop me just yet, for I have told you only one
side of the matter. I have shown you how few and simple are the accounts
we keep compared with those in corresponding relations kept by you; but
the biggest part of the subject is the accounts you had to keep which we
do not keep at all. Debit and credit are no longer known; interest,
rents, profits, and all the calculations based on them no more have any
place in human affairs. In your day everybody, besides his account with
the state, was involved in a network of accounts with all about him. Even
the humblest wage-earner was on the books of half a dozen tradesmen,
while a man of substance might be down in scores or hundreds, and this
without speaking of men not engaged in commerce. A fairly nimble dollar
had to be set down so many times in so many places, as it went from hand
to hand, that we calculate in about five years it must have cost itself
in ink, paper, pens, and clerk hire, let alone fret and worry. All these
forms of private and business accounts have now been done away with.
Nobody owes anybody, or is owed by anybody, or has any contract with
anybody, or any account of any sort with anybody, but is simply beholden
to everybody for such kindly regard as his virtues may attract."