Edward Bellamy, American social reformer, who sprang into fame in
the last decade of the nineteenth century by his book, "Looking
Backward," was born in Massachusetts, on March 25, 1850. Trained
for the Bar, he became a journalist, and devoted his pen to the
propaganda of socialism. After the unprecedented success of his
socialist novel, in which he describes a suppositious twentieth
century revolution from the standpoint of a hypnotised sleeper
awakened in 2000 A.D., his modest home at Chicopee Falls became a
recognised centre of the socialist movement in the United States.
"Looking Backward" was published in 1888, and was followed by
"Equality," in which he expounded his political doctrines in
dialogue form, the story being treated merely as a sequel to the
earlier book, and entirely subordinated to the more serious aim. We
have here preferred to classify "Looking Backward" as a work of
philosophy, and not as fiction. Bellamy's championship of the
rights of the disinherited, and his enlightened ideas, conveyed in
a by no means unimaginative style, gained him many friends and
sympathisers. Bellamy died on May 22, 1898.
_I.--The Great Change_
I first saw the light in the city of Boston, in the year 1857. "What!"
you say, "eighteen-fifty-seven? That is an odd slip. He means
nineteen-fifty-seven, of course." I beg pardon, but there is no mistake.
It was about four in the afternoon of December 26, one day after
Christmas, in the year 1857, not 1957, that I, Julian West, first
breathed the east wind of Boston, which, I assure the reader, was at
that remote period marked by the same penetrating quality characterising
it in the present year of grace, 2000.
Living in luxury, and occupied only with the pursuit of the pleasures
and refinements of life, I derived the means of my support from the
labour of others, rendering no sort of service in return. Why, you ask,
should the world have supported in utter idleness one who was able to
render service? The answer is, that my great-grandfather had accumulated
a sum of money, on the yield of which his descendants had ever since
lived. "Interest on investments" was a species of tax on industry which
a person possessing or inheriting money was then able to levy, in spite
of all the efforts to put down usury.
I cannot do better than compare society as it then was to a prodigious
coach to which the masses were harnessed and dragged toilsomely along a
very hilly and sandy road, with Hunger for driver. The passengers
comfortably seated on the top would call down encouragingly to the
toilers at the rope, exhorting them to patience; but always expected to
be drawn and not to pull, because, as they thought, they were not like
their brothers who pulled at the rope, but of finer clay, in some way
belonging to a higher order of beings.
In 1887, I was engaged to wed Edith Bartlett. She, like myself, rode on
the top of the coach. Our marriage only awaited the completion of a
house, which, however, was delayed by a series of strikes. I remember
Mr. Bartlett saying: "The working classes all over the world seem to be
going crazy at once. In Europe it is far worse even than here."
The family mansion, in which I lived alone with a faithful coloured
servant by the name of Sawyer, was not a house to which I could think of
bringing a bride, much less so dainty a one as Edith Bartlett. Being a
sufferer from insomnia, I had caused a secret sleeping chamber to be
built of stone beneath the foundation, and when even the silence of this
retreat failed to bring slumber, I sometimes called in a professional
mesmeriser to put me into a hypnotic sleep, from which Sawyer knew how
to arouse me at a given time.
On the night of May 30, 1887, I was put to sleep as usual. That night
the house was wholly destroyed by fire; and it was not until a hundred
and thirteen years later, in September 2000 A.D., that the subterranean
chamber was discovered, and myself, the sleeper, aroused by Dr. Leete, a
physician of Boston on the retired list. My companion, Dr. Leete, led
the way to a belvedere on the house-top. "Be pleased to look around
you," he said, "and tell me whether this is the Boston of the nineteenth
century."
At my feet lay a great city. Miles of broad streets, shaded by trees,
and lined with fine buildings, for the most part not in continuous
blocks, but set in larger or smaller enclosures, stretched in every
direction. Every quarter contained large open squares filled with trees,
among which statues glistened and fountains flashed in the late
afternoon sun. Public buildings of a colossal size and an architectural
grandeur unparalleled in my day raised their stately piles on every
side. Surely, I had never before seen this city, nor one comparable to
it. Raising my eyes at last towards the horizon, I looked westward. That
blue ribbon winding away to the sunset, was it not the sinuous Charles?
I looked east: Boston harbour stretched before me with its headlands,
not one of its green islets missing.
"If you had told me," I said, profoundly awed, "that a thousand years
instead of a hundred had elapsed since I last looked on this city, I
should now believe you."
"Only a century has passed," he answered; "but many a millennium in the
world's history has seen changes less extraordinary."
_II.--How the Great Change Came About_
After Dr. Leete had responded to numerous questions on my part, he asked
in what point the contrast between the new and the old city struck me
most forcibly.
"To speak of small things before great," I replied, "I really think
that the complete absence of chimneys and their smoke is the detail that
first impressed me."
"Ah!" ejaculated my companion. "I had forgotten the chimneys, it is so
long since they went out of use. It is nearly a century since the crude
method of combustion, on which you depended for heat, became obsolete."
"In general," I said, "what impresses me most about the city is the
material prosperity on the part of the people which its magnificence
implies."
"I would give a great deal for just one glimpse of the Boston of your
day," replied Dr. Leete. "No doubt the cities of that period were rather
shabby affairs. If you had the taste to make them splendid, which I
would not be so rude as to question, the general poverty resulting from
your extraordinary industrial system would not have given you the means.
Moreover, the excessive individualism was inconsistent with much public
spirit. Nowadays, there is no destination of the surplus wealth so
popular as the adornment of the city, which all enjoy in equal degree.
It is growing dark," he added. "Let us descend into the house; I want to
introduce my wife and daughter to you."
The apartment in which we found the ladies, as well as the entire
interior of the house, was filled with a mellow light, which I knew must
be artificial, although I could not discover the source from which it
was diffused. Mrs. Leete was an exceptionally fine-looking and
well-preserved woman, while her daughter, in the first blush of
womanhood, was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. In this lovely
creature feminine softness and delicacy were deliciously combined with
an appearance of health and abounding physical vitality too often
lacking in the maidens with whom alone I could compare her. The evening
which followed was certainly unique in the history of social
intercourse.
When the ladies retired, Dr. Leete sounded me as to my disposition for
sleep, but gladly bore me company when I confessed I was afraid of it. I
was curious, too, as to the changes.
"To make a beginning somewhere," said I, "what solution, if any, have
you found for the labour question? It was the Sphinx's riddle of the
nineteenth century, and when I dropped out the Sphinx was threatening to
devour society because the answer was not forthcoming."
"The riddle may be said to have solved itself," replied Dr. Leete. "The
solution came as the result of a process of industrial evolution which
could not have terminated otherwise. The movement toward the conduct of
business by larger and larger aggregations of capital--the tendency
toward monopolies, which had been desperately and vainly resisted--was
recognised at last as a process to a golden future.
"Early in the last century the evolution was completed by the final
consolidation of the entire capital of the nation. The industry and
commerce of the country, ceasing to be conducted by a set of
irresponsible corporations and syndicates of private persons at their
caprice and for their profit, were entrusted to a single syndicate
representing the people, to be conducted for the common profit. That is
to say, the nation organised itself as one great business corporation in
which all other corporations were absorbed. It became the one
capitalist, the sole employer, the final monopoly, in the profits and
economies of which all citizens shared. The epoch of trusts ended in the
Great Trust. In a word, the people of the United States concluded to
assume the conduct of their own business, just as a hundred odd years
earlier they had assumed the conduct of their own government. Strangely
late in the world's history, the obvious fact was perceived that no
business is so essentially the public business as the industry and
commerce on which the people's livelihood depends, and that to entrust
it to private persons to be managed for private profit is a folly
similar in kind, though vastly greater in magnitude, to that of
surrendering the functions of political government to kings and nobles
to be conducted for their personal glorification."
"So stupendous a change," said I, "did not, of course, take place
without bloodshed and terrible convulsions?"
"On the contrary, there was absolutely no violence. The great
corporations had taught an entirely new set of ideas. The people had
seen syndicates handling revenues; greater than those of states, and
directing the labours of hundreds of thousands of men with an efficiency
unattainable in smaller operations. It had come to be recognised as an
axiom that the larger the business the simpler the principles that can
be applied to it; that, as the machine is truer than the hand, so the
system, which in a great concern does the work of the master's eye, in a
small business turns out more accurate results. Thus, thanks to the
corporations themselves, when it was proposed that the nation should
assume their functions, the suggestion implied nothing that seemed
impracticable."
"In my day," said I, "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."
"And, in heaven's name, who are the public enemies?" exclaimed Dr.
Leete. "Are they France, England, Germany? or Hunger, Cold, 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. 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 government assuming charge of the national industries."
"No doubt you were right," rejoined Dr. Leete; "but all that is changed.
We have no parties or politicians."
"Human nature itself must have changed very much."
"Not at all; but the conditions of human life have changed, and with
them the motives of human action. The organisation 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. Now society is so
constituted that there is absolutely no way in which an official could
possibly make any profit for himself or anyone else by a misuse of his
power."
_III.--Labour's New Regime_
"But you have not yet told me how you have settled the labour problem."
"When the nation became the sole employer," said Dr. Leete, "all the
citizens became employees, to be distributed according to the needs of
industry."
"That is, you have simply applied the principle of universal military
service, as understood in our day, to the labour question."
"Yes. Nevertheless, to speak of service being compulsory would be a weak
way to state its absolute inevitableness. If it were conceivable that a
man could escape it, he would be left with no possible way to provide
for his existence. 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, the citizen is liable
to special calls for labour emergencies till fifty-five."
"But what administrative talent can be equal to determining wisely what
trade or business every individual in a great nation shall pursue?"
"The administration has nothing to do with determining that point. Every
man determines it for himself in accordance with his natural aptitude,
the utmost pains being taken to enable him to find out what his natural
aptitude really is. Usually, long before he is mustered into service, a
young man has found out the pursuit he wants to follow, has acquired a
great deal of knowledge about it, and is awaiting impatiently the time
when he can enlist in its ranks."
"Surely, it can hardly be that the number of volunteers for any trade is
exactly the number needed?"
"The supply is always expected to equal fully the demand. The rate of
volunteering is closely watched. It is the business of the
administration to equalise the attractions of the trades, so that the
lightest trades have the longest hours, while an arduous trade, such as
mining, has very short hours."
"How is the class of common labourers recruited?"
"It is the grade to which all new recruits belong for the first three
years. If a man were so stupid as to have no choice as to occupation, he
would simply remain a common labourer."
"Having once elected and entered on a trade or occupation, I suppose he
has to stick to it the rest of his life?"
"Not necessarily," replied Dr. Leete; "while frequent and merely
capricious changes of occupation are net permitted, every worker is
allowed, of course under regulations and in accordance with the
exigencies of the service, to volunteer for another industry which he
thinks would suit him better than his first choice. It is only the
poorer sort of workmen who desire to change. Of course, transfers or
discharges are always given when health demands them."
"How are the brain-workers selected? That must require a very delicate
sort of sifting process?"
"So it does, the most delicate possible test; so we leave the question
whether a man shall be a brain or handworker entirely to him to settle.
At the end of the three years of common labour, if a man feels he can do
better work with his brain than his muscles, the schools of technology,
medicine, art, music, histrionics, and higher liberal learning are open
to him without condition. But anyone without the special aptitude would
find it easier to do double hours at his trade than try to keep up with
the classes. This opportunity for a professional training remains open
to every man till the age of thirty."
_IV.--The New Plan_
Dr. and Mrs. Leete were startled to learn I had been all over the city
alone. "You must have seen a good many new things," said Mrs. Leete, as
we sat down to table.
"I think what surprised me as much as anything was not to find any
stores in Washington Street, or any banks of State. What have you done
with the merchants and bankers?"
"Their functions are obsolete in the modern world. There is neither
selling nor buying, and we have no money. As soon as the nation became
the producer of all sorts of commodities, there was no need of exchanges
between individuals. Everything was procurable from one source, and that
only. A system of direct distribution from the national storehouses took
the place of trade, and for this money was unnecessary."
"How is this distribution managed?"
"A credit, corresponding to his share of the annual product of the
nation, is given to every citizen on the public books at the beginning
of each year, and a credit-card issued him, with which he procures at
the public stores, found in every community, whatever he desires,
whenever he desires it.
"You observe," he pursued, as I was curiously examining the piece of
pasteboard he gave me, "that this credit-card is issued for a certain
number of dollars. We keep the old term dollars as an algebraical symbol
for comparing the values of products with one another. All are priced in
dollars and cents, just as in your day. The value of what I procure on
this card is checked off by the clerk, who pricks out of these tiers of
squares the price of what I order."
"If you wanted to buy something of your neighbour, could you transfer
part of your credit to him?"
"Our neighbours have nothing to sell us; but, in any event, one's credit
would not be transferable, being strictly personal. Before the nation
could even think of honouring any such transfer, it would be bound to
inquire into its equity. It would have been reason enough, had there
been no other, for abolishing money, that its possession was no
indication of rightful title to it. In the hands of the man who had
stolen it, it was as good as if earned by industry.
"People nowadays interchange gifts, but buying and selling is considered
absolutely inconsistent with the mutual benevolence and
disinterestedness which should prevail between citizens. According to
our ideas, the practice of buying and selling is essentially anti-social
in all its tendencies. It is an education in self-seeking at the expense
of others, and no society whose citizens are trained in such a school
can possibly rise above a very low grade of civilisation."
"What if you have to spend more than your card allows in any one year?"
"If extraordinary expenses should exhaust it we can obtain a limited
advance on next year's credit at a heavy discount. If a man showed
himself a reckless spendthrift he would receive his allowance monthly or
weekly instead of yearly, or, if necessary, not be permitted to handle
it at all."
"If you don't spend your allowance, I suppose it accumulates?"
"That is also permitted to a certain extent when a special outlay is
anticipated. But unless notice is given, it is presumed that the citizen
who does not fully expend his credit did not have occasion to do so, and
the balance is turned into the general surplus."
"Such a system does not encourage saving habits."
"It is not intended to. No man has care for the morrow, either for
himself or his children, for the nation guarantees the nurture,
education, and maintenance of every citizen from the cradle to the
grave."
"But what inducement can a man have to put forth his best endeavours
when, however much or little he accomplishes, his income remains the
same?"
"Does it then really seem to you that human nature is insensible to any
motives save fear of want and love of luxury, that you expect security
and equality of livelihood to leave men without incentives to effort?
Your contemporaries did not really think so. When it was a question of
the grandest class of efforts, the most absolute self-devotion, they
depended on quite other motives. Not higher wages, but honour and the
hope of men's gratitude, patriotism, and the inspiration of duty were
the motives they set before their soldiers. Now that industry of
whatever sort is no longer self-service, but service of the nation,
patriotism--passion for humanity--impels the worker as in your day it
did the soldier."
During the next few days I investigated many other of the social and
domestic arrangements of Bostonians of the twenty-first century, and
from what I saw myself and heard from my hosts, I gained some tolerably
clear ideas of modern organisation, and the system of distribution. But
it seemed to me that the system of production and the direction of the
industrial army must be wonderfully complex and difficult.
"I assure you that it is nothing of the kind," said Dr. Leete. "The
entire field of production and constructive industry is divided into ten
great departments, each representing a group of allied industries, each
industry being in turn represented by a subordinate bureau, which has a
complete record of the plant and force under its control, of the present
output, and means of increasing it. The estimates of the distributive
department, after adoption by the administration, are sent as mandates
to the ten great departments, which allot them to the subordinate
bureaus representing the particular industries, and these set the men at
work. Each bureau is responsible for the task given it. Even if in the
hands of the consumer an article turns out unfit, the system enables the
fault to be traced back to the original workman. After the necessary
contingents of labour have been detailed for the various industries, the
amount of labour left for other employment is expended in creating fixed
capital, such as buildings, machinery, engineering works, and so forth."
That evening and the next following I sat up late talking with Dr. Leete
of the changes of the last hundred and thirteen years; but on the
Sunday, my first in the twenty-first century, I fell into a state of
profound depression, accentuated by consideration of the vast moral gap
between the century to which I belonged and that in which I found
myself. There was no place anywhere for me. I was neither dead nor
properly alive. Now I realised the mingled pity, curiosity, and aversion
which I, as a representative of an abhorred epoch, must excite in all
around me; but that Edith Leete must share their feelings was more than
I could bear.
Towards nightfall I entered the subterranean chamber and sat down there,
feeling utterly alone. Presently Edith stood in the door.
"Has it never occurred to you," I said, "that my position is more
utterly alone than any human being's ever was before?"
"Oh, you must not talk in that way. You don't know how it makes me feel
to see you so forlorn," she exclaimed.
I caught her hands in my own. "Are you so blind as not to see why such
kindness as you have all shown me is not enough to make me happy?"
"Are you sure it is not you who are blind?" she said.
That was all; but it was enough, for it told me that this radiant
daughter of a golden age had bestowed upon me not alone her pity, but
her love. And now I first knew what was perhaps the strangest feature of
my strange experience: Edith was the great grand-daughter of no other
than my lost love Edith Bartlett.