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A Modern Utopia Chapter 5 - A Failure in a Modern Utopia, Sections 1-3 · The H. G. Wells Library

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  Speaker 1: Chapter the fifth of a Modern Utopia. This is a
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Christopher Taylor. A Modern Utopia by H. G. Wells,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter the fifth Failure in a Modern Utopia, Section one.
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  Speaker 1: The old utopias, save for the breeding schemes of Plato
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  Speaker 1: and Campanella, ignored that reproductive competition among individualities, which is
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  Speaker 1: as substance of life and dealt essentially with its incidentals.
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  Speaker 1: The endless variety of men, their endless gradation of quality,
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  Speaker 1: over which the hand of selection plays and to which
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  Speaker 1: we owe the unimaginable complication of real life, is tacitly
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  Speaker 1: set aside. The real world is a fast disorder of
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  Speaker 1: accidents and incalculable forces, in which men survive or fail.
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  Speaker 1: A modern utopia, unlike its predecessors, dare not pretend to
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  Speaker 1: change the last condition. It may order and humanize the conflict,
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  Speaker 1: but men must still survive or fail. Most utopias present
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  Speaker 1: themselves as going concerns, as happiness in being. They make
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  Speaker 1: it an essential condition that a happy land can have
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  Speaker 1: no history and all the citizens one is permitted to
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  Speaker 1: see are well looking, and upright, and mentally and morally
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  Speaker 1: in tune. But we are under the dominion of a
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  Speaker 1: logic that obliges us to take over the actual population
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  Speaker 1: of the world with only such moral and mental and
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  Speaker 1: physical improvements as lie within their inherent possibilities. And it
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  Speaker 1: is our business to ask what utopia will do with
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  Speaker 1: its congenital invalids, its idiots and madmen, its drunkards and
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  Speaker 1: men of vicious mind, its cruel and furtive souls, Its
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  Speaker 1: stupid people too stupid to be of use to the community,
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  Speaker 1: Its slumpish, unteachable and unimaginative people. What will it do
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  Speaker 1: with the man who is poor all round the rather
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  Speaker 1: space fearless, rather incompetent, low grade man who on Earth
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  Speaker 1: sits in the din of the sweater, tramps the streets,
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  Speaker 1: under the banner of the unemployed, or trembles in another
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  Speaker 1: man's cast off clothing, and with an infinity of hat
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  Speaker 1: touching on the verge of rural employment. These people will
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  Speaker 1: have to be in the descendant phase. The species must
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  Speaker 1: be engaged in eliminating them. There is no escape from that.
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  Speaker 1: And conversely, the people of exceptional quality must be ascendant.
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  Speaker 1: The better sword of people, so far as it could
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  Speaker 1: be distinguished, must have the fullest freedom of public service,
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  Speaker 1: and the fullest opportunity of parentage. And it must be
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  Speaker 1: open to every man to approve himself worthy of ascendancy.
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  Speaker 1: The way of nature in this process is to kill
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  Speaker 1: the weaker and the sillier, to crush them, to starve them,
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  Speaker 1: to overwhelm them, using the stronger and more cunning as
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  Speaker 1: her weapon. But man is the unnatural animal, the rebel
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  Speaker 1: child of nature. And more and more does he turn
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  Speaker 1: himself against the harsh and fitful hand that reared him.
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  Speaker 1: He sees with a growing resentment the multitude of suffering,
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  Speaker 1: ineffectual lives over which his species tramples in its ascent.
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  Speaker 1: In the modern utopia, he will have set himself to
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  Speaker 1: change the ancient law. No longer will it be that
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  Speaker 1: failures must suffer and perish lest their breed increase. But
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  Speaker 1: the breed of failure must not increase, lest they suffer
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  Speaker 1: and perish, and the race with them. Now we need
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  Speaker 1: not argue here to prove that the resources of the
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  Speaker 1: world and the energy of mankind, where they organized sanely,
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  Speaker 1: are amply sufficient. To supply every material need of every
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  Speaker 1: living human being. And if it could be so contrived
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  Speaker 1: that every human being shall live in a state of
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  Speaker 1: reasonable physical and mental comfort without the reproduction of inferior types,
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  Speaker 1: there is no reason whatever why that should not be secured.
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  Speaker 1: But there must be a competition in life of some
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  Speaker 1: sort to determine who are to be pushed to the
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  Speaker 1: edge and who are to prevail and multiply. Whatever we do,
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  Speaker 1: man will remain a competitive creature. And though moral and
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  Speaker 1: intellectual training may vary and enlarges conception of success and
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  Speaker 1: fortify him with refinements and consolations, no utopia will ever
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  Speaker 1: save him completely from the emotional drama of struggle, from
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  Speaker 1: exultations and humiliations, from pride and prostration and shame. He
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  Speaker 1: lives in success and failure just as inevitably as he
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  Speaker 1: lives in space and time. But we may do much
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  Speaker 1: to make the margin of failure endurable on earth. For
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  Speaker 1: all the extravagance of charity, the struggle for the mass
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  Speaker 1: of men at the bottom resolves itself into a struggle,
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  Speaker 1: and often a very foul and ugly struggle for food, shelter,
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  Speaker 1: and clothing. Death's outright from exposure and starvation are now
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  Speaker 1: perhaps uncommon, but for the multitude there are only miserable houses,
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  Speaker 1: uncomfortable clothes, and bad and insufficient food, fractional starvation and exposure.
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  Speaker 1: That is to say, a utopia planned upon modern lines
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  Speaker 1: will certainly have put an end to that. It will
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  Speaker 1: insist upon every citizen being properly housed, well nourished, and
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  Speaker 1: in good health, reasonably clean and clothed healthily, And upon
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  Speaker 1: that insistence, its labor laws will be founded in a
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  Speaker 1: phrasing that will be familiar to everyone interested in social reform.
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  Speaker 1: It will maintain a standard of life. Any house, unless
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  Speaker 1: it be a public monument that does not come up
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  Speaker 1: to its rising standard of healthiness and convenience. The utopian
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  Speaker 1: state will incontinently pull down and pile the material, and
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  Speaker 1: charge the owner for the labor. Any house unduly crowded
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  Speaker 1: or dirty, it must, in some effectual manner, directly or
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  Speaker 1: indirectly confiscate and clear and clean. And any citizen indecently
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  Speaker 1: dressed or ragged and dirty, or publicly unhealthy, or sleeping abroad, homeless,
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  Speaker 1: or in any way neglected or derelict, must come under
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  Speaker 1: its care. He will find him work if he can
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  Speaker 1: and will work, it will take him to it. It
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  Speaker 1: will register him and lend him the money, wherewith the
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  Speaker 1: lead a comely life until work can be found or
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  Speaker 1: made for him, and it will give him credit and
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  Speaker 1: shelter him and strengthen him. If he is ill in
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  Speaker 1: default of private enterprises, it will provide ends for him
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  Speaker 1: and food, and it will, by itself, acting as the
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  Speaker 1: reserve employee, maintain a minimum wage which will cover the
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  Speaker 1: cost of a decent life. The state will stand at
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  Speaker 1: the back of the economic struggle as the reserve employer
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  Speaker 1: of labor. This most excellent idea does, as a matter
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  Speaker 1: of fact, underlie the British institution of the workhouse, but
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  Speaker 1: is jumbled up with the relief of old age and infirmity.
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  Speaker 1: It is administered parochially and on the supposition that all
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  Speaker 1: population is static and localized, whereas every year it becomes
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  Speaker 1: more migratory. It is administered without any regard to the
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  Speaker 1: rising standards of comfort and self respect in a progressive civilization,
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  Speaker 1: and it is administered grudgingly. The thing that is done
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  Speaker 1: is done as unwilling charity by administrators who are often
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  Speaker 1: in the rural districts at least competing for low priced labor,
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  Speaker 1: and who regard want of employment as a crime. But
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  Speaker 1: if it were possible for any citizen and need of
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  Speaker 1: money to resort to a place of public employment as
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  Speaker 1: a right and their work for a week or month
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  Speaker 1: without degradation upon certain minimum terms, it seems fairly certain
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  Speaker 1: that no one would work except as the victim of
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  Speaker 1: some quite exceptional and temporary accident. For less the work
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  Speaker 1: publicly provided would have to be toilsome, but not cruel
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  Speaker 1: or incapacitating. A choice of occupations would need to be afforded,
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  Speaker 1: occupations adapted to different types of training and capacity, with
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  Speaker 1: some residual employment of a purely laborious and mechanical sort
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  Speaker 1: for those who were incapable of doing things that required intelligence. Necessarily,
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  Speaker 1: this employment by the state would be a relief of
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  Speaker 1: economic pressure, but it would not be considered a charity
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  Speaker 1: done to the individual, but a public service. It need
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  Speaker 1: not pay any more than the police need pay, but
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  Speaker 1: it could probably be done at a small margin of loss.
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  Speaker 1: There is a number of durable things bound finely to
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  Speaker 1: be useful that could be made and stored Whenever the
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  Speaker 1: tide of more highly paid employment ebbed and labor sank
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  Speaker 1: to its minimum, bricks, iron from inferior ores, shaped and
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  Speaker 1: preserved temper pins, nails, plain fabrics of cotton and linen, paper, sheet, glass,
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  Speaker 1: artificial fuel, and so on. New roads could be made,
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  Speaker 1: and public buildings reconstructed. Inconveniences of all sorts removed, until
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  Speaker 1: under the stimulus of accumulating material, accumulating investments, or other circumstances,
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  Speaker 1: the tie to private enterprise flowed again. The state would
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  Speaker 1: provide these things for its citizen as though it was
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  Speaker 1: his right to require them. He would receive as a
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  Speaker 1: shareholder in the common enterprise, and not with any insult
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  Speaker 1: of charity. But on the other hand, it will require
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  Speaker 1: that the citizen who renders the minimum of service for
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  Speaker 1: these concessions shall not become apparent until he is established
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  Speaker 1: in a work at a rate above the minimum, and
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  Speaker 1: free of any debt he may have incurred. The state
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  Speaker 1: will never press for its debt, nor put a limit
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  Speaker 1: to its accumulation. So long as a man or woman
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  Speaker 1: remains childless, it will not even grudge them temporary spells
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  Speaker 1: of good fortune when they may lift their earnings above
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  Speaker 1: the minimum wage. It will pension the age of everyone
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  Speaker 1: who cares to take a pension, and it will maintain
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  Speaker 1: special guest homes for the very old, to which they
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  Speaker 1: may come as paying guests, spinning their pensions. There by
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  Speaker 1: such obvious devices, it will achieve the maximum elimination of
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  Speaker 1: its feeble and spiritless folk in every generation, with the
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  Speaker 1: minimum of suffering and public disorder. Section two. But the
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  Speaker 1: mildly incompetant, the spiritless, and dull, the poorer sort who
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  Speaker 1: are ill, do not exhaust our utopian problem. There remain
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  Speaker 1: idiots and lunatics. There remain perverse and incompetent persons. There
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  Speaker 1: are people of weak character who become drunkards, drug takers,
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  Speaker 1: and the like. Then there are persons tainted with certain
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  Speaker 1: foul and transmissible diseases. All these people spoil the world
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  Speaker 1: for others. They may become parents, And with the most
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  Speaker 1: of them, there is manifestly nothing to be done but
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  Speaker 1: to seclude them from the great body of the population.
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  Speaker 1: You must resort to a kind of social surgery. You
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  Speaker 1: cannot have social freedom in your public ways. Your children
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  Speaker 1: cannot speak with whom they will. Your girls and gentle
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  Speaker 1: women cannot go abroad, while some sorts of people go free,
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  Speaker 1: And there are violent people, and those people who will
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  Speaker 1: not rest speck the property of others, thieves and cheats,
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  Speaker 1: They too, so soon as their nature is confirmed, must
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  Speaker 1: pass out of the free life of the ordered world.
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  Speaker 1: So soon as there can be no doubt of the
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  Speaker 1: disease or baseness of the individual. So soon as the
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  Speaker 1: insanity or other disease is assured, or the crime repeated
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  Speaker 1: a third time, or the drunkness or misdemeanor passed its
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  Speaker 1: seventh occasion, let us say, so soon must he or
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  Speaker 1: she pass out of the common ways of men. The
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  Speaker 1: dreadfulness of all such proposals as this lies in the
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  Speaker 1: possibility of their execution falling into the hands of hard,
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  Speaker 1: dull and cruel administrators. But in the case of a utopia,
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  Speaker 1: one assumes the best possible government. A government is merciful
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  Speaker 1: and deliberate, as it is powerful and decisive. You must
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  Speaker 1: not too hastily imagine these things being done as it
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  Speaker 1: would be done on earth at present, by a number
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  Speaker 1: of zealous, half educated people in a state of panic,
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  Speaker 1: at a quite imaginary rapid multiplication of the unfit. No
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  Speaker 1: doubt for first offenders, and for all offenders under five
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  Speaker 1: and twenty. The modern Utopia will attempt cautionary and remedial treatment.
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  Speaker 1: There will be disciplinary schools and colleges for the young,
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  Speaker 1: fair and happy places, but with less confidence and more
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  Speaker 1: restraint than the schools and colleges of the ordinary world.
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  Speaker 1: In remote and solitary regions, these enclosures will lie. They
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  Speaker 1: will be fitenced in and forbidden to the common run
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  Speaker 1: of men, and there, remote from all temptation, the defective
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  Speaker 1: citizen will be schooled. There will be no masking of
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  Speaker 1: the lesson which do you value most the wide world
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  Speaker 1: of humanity, or this evil trend in you from that discipline.
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  Speaker 1: At last, the prisoner will return. But the others, what
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  Speaker 1: would a saner world do with them? Our world is
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  Speaker 1: still vindictive. But the all reaching state of Utopia will
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  Speaker 1: have the strength that begets mercy. Quietly, the outcast will
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  Speaker 1: go from among his fellow men. There will be no
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  Speaker 1: drumming of him out of the ranks, no tearing off
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  Speaker 1: of apelets, no smiting in the face. The thing must
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  Speaker 1: be just public enough to obviate secret tyrannies, and that
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  Speaker 1: is all. There would be no killing, no lethal chambers,
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  Speaker 1: No doubt, Utopia will kill all deformed in monstrous and
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  Speaker 1: eavily diseased births. But for the rest the state will
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  Speaker 1: hold itself accountable for their being. There is no justice
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  Speaker 1: in nature, perhaps, but the idea of justice must be
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  Speaker 1: sacred in any good society. Lives that statemanship has permitted,
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  Speaker 1: errors has not foreseen, and educated against must not be
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  Speaker 1: punished by death. If the state does not keep faith,
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  Speaker 1: no one will keep faith. Crime and bad lives are
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  Speaker 1: the measure of a state's failure. All crime, in the
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  Speaker 1: end is the crime of the community, even for murder.
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  Speaker 1: Utopia will not, I think kill, I doubt even if
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  Speaker 1: there will be jails, no men are quite wise enough,
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  Speaker 1: good enough, and cheap enough to staff jails as a
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  Speaker 1: jail ought to be staffed. Perhaps islands will be chosen,
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  Speaker 1: islands lying apart from the highways of the sea, And
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: to these the state will send its exiles, most of
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  Speaker 1: them thinking heaven no doubt, to be quit of a
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  Speaker 1: world of prigs. The state will of course secure itself
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  Speaker 1: against innych other from these people. That is the primary
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  Speaker 1: object in their seclusion. And perhaps it may even be
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  Speaker 1: necessary to make these island prisons. A system of island
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  Speaker 1: monasteries and island nunneries upon that I am not competent
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  Speaker 1: to speak. But if I may believe the literature of
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: the subject unhappily a not very well criticized literature, it
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  Speaker 1: is not necessary to enforce this separation footnote see for example,
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  Speaker 1: doctor W. A. Chapels the fertility of the unfit. About
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  Speaker 1: such islands, patrol boats will go. There will be no
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  Speaker 1: freedoms of a boat building, and it may be necessary to
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: have armed guards at the creeks and quays. Beyond that,
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  Speaker 1: the state will give these segregated failures just as full
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  Speaker 1: of liberty as they can have. If it interferes any further.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: It will be simply to police the islands against the
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: organization of serious cruelty, to maintain the freedom of any
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: of the detained who wish it, to transfer themselves to
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  Speaker 1: other islands, and so to keep a check upon tyranny.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: The insane, of course, will demand care and control. But
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  Speaker 1: there is no reason why the islands of the hopeless drunkard,
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  Speaker 1: for example, should not each have a virtual autonomy, have
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  Speaker 1: it the most a resident and a guard. I believe
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  Speaker 1: that a community of drunkards might be capable of organizing
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  Speaker 1: even its own bad habit to the pitch of tolerable existence.
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  Speaker 1: I do not see why such an island should not
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  Speaker 1: build an order for itself and manufacture and trade. Your
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  Speaker 1: ways are not our ways, the world state will say.
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  Speaker 1: But here is freedom and a company of kindred souls. Electure,
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  Speaker 1: jolly rulers, brew if you will, and distill. Here are
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  Speaker 1: buying cuttings and barley fields. Do as it pleases you
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: to do. We will take care of the knives. But
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: for the rest, deal yourselves with God. And you see
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: the big convict steamships standing in to the island of
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: incurable cheats. The crew are respectfully at their quarters, ready
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: to lend a hand overboard, but wide awake, and the
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: captain is hospitably on the bridge to bid his guests goodbye,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: and to keep an eye on the movables. The new
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: citizens for this particular Alsatia, each, no doubt, with his
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: personal belongings securely packed and in hand, crowd the deck
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: and study the nearing coast. Bright keen faces would be there,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: And we were we by any chance to find ourselves beside,
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  Speaker 1: the captain might recognize the double of this great earthly magnate,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: or that petticoat lane in park Lane cheek by jowl.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: The landing part of the jetty is clear of people.
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  Speaker 1: Only a government man or so stands there to receive
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: the boat and prevent a rush. But beside the gates
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: a number of engagingly smart looking individuals loiter speculatively. One
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: figures a remarkable building labeled a custom house an interesting
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: fiscal revival. This population is made, and beyond crowding up
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: the hill, the painted walls of a number of comfortable
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: inns clamor loudly one or two inhabitants and reduced circumstances
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: would act as hotel touts. There are several hotel omnibuses,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: and a bueau de change, certainly a bureau de change,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: and a small house with a large board aimed point
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: blank seaward declares itself a grout information office, and next
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  Speaker 1: to it rises the graceful dome of a small casino.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Beyond great hoardings proclaim the advantages of many island specialties,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: a hustling commerce, and the opening of a public lottery.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: There is a large, cheap looking barrack, the School of
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Commercial Science for gentlemen of inadequate training. Altogether a very
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: go ahead looking little port. It would be. And though
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: this disembarkation would have none of the flow of Hilario's
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: good fellowship that would throw a halo of genial noise
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: about the islands of drink, it is doubtful if the
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: new arrivals would feel anything very tragic in the moment.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: Here at last was scope for adventure after their hearts.
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  Speaker 1: This sounds more fantastic than it is. But what else
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  Speaker 1: is there to do? Unless you kill, you must seclude.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: But why should you torment? All modern prisons are places
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: of torture by restraint, and the habitual criminal plays the
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: part of a damaged mouse at the mercy of the
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: cat of our law. He has his little painful run,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: and back he comes again to a state more horrible
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: even than destitution. There are no we alsatia is left
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  Speaker 1: in the world. For my own part, I can think
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: of no crime, unless it is the reckless begetting or
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: wilful transmission of contagious disease, for which the bleak terrors,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: the solitudes, the agnominies of the modern prison do not
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: seem outrageously cruel. If you want to go as far
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  Speaker 1: as that, then kill. Why once you are rid of them,
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  Speaker 1: should you pester criminals to respect an uncongenial standard of
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: conduct into such islands of exile as this, a modern
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: utopia will have to purge itself. There is no alternative
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  Speaker 1: that I can contrive. Section three. Will utopian be free
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: to be idle? Work has to be done every day.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Humanity is sustained by its collective effort, and without a
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: constant recurrence of effort in a single man, as in
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: the race as a whole, there is neither health nor happiness.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: The permanent idleness of a human being is not only
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: burthensome to the world, but his own secure misery. But
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: unprofitable occupation is also intended by idleness. And it may
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: be considered whether that freedom also will be open of
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: the utopian. Conceivably, it will like privacy, locomotion, and almost
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: all the freedoms of life. And on the same terms,
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: if he possessed the money to pay for it. That
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: last condition may produce a shock in minds accustomed to
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: the proposition that money is the root of all evil,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: and to the idea that utopia necessarily implies something rather
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: oaken and handmade and primitive. In all these relations, of course,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: money is not the root of any evil. In the world.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: The root of all evil in the world, and the
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: root of all good too, is the will to live.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: And money becomes harmful only when by bad laws and
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: bad economic organization is more easily attained by bad men
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: than good. It is as reasonable to save. Food is
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: the root of all disease, because so many people suffer
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: from excessive and unwise eating. The same economic ideal is
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: to make the possession of money the clearer indication of
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: public serviceableness, and the more nearly that ideal is attained,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: the smaller is a justification of poverty, and the less
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: the hardship a being poor. In barbaric and disorderly countries,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: it is almost honorable to be indigent, and unquestionably virtuous
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: to give to a beggar. And even in the more
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: or less civilized societies of Earth, so many children come
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: into this life hopelessly handicapped, that austerity to the poor
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: is regarded as the meanest of mean virtues. But in
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: utopia everyone will have had an education and a certain
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: minimum of nutrition in training. Everyone will be insured against
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: ill health and accidents. There will be the most efficient
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: organization for balancing the pressure of employment and the presence
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: of disengaged labor, and so to be moneyless will be
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: clear evidence of unworthiness. In utopia, no one will dream
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: of giving to a casual beggar, and no one will
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: dream of begging. There will need to be in the
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: place of the British casual wards, simple but comfortable ends,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: with a low tariff, controlled to a certain extent, no doubt,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: and even in some cases maintained by the state. This
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: teriff will have such a definite relation to the minimum
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: permissible wage that a man who has incurred no liabilities
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: through marriage or the like relation will be able to
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: live in comfort and decency upon that minimum wage, pay
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: his small insurance premium against disease, death, disablement, or ripening years,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: and have a margin of for clothing and other personal expenses.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: But he will get neither shelter nor food, except at
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: the price of his freedom, unless he can produce money.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: But suppose a man without money in a district where
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: employment is not to be found for him, Suppose the
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: amount of employment to have diminished in the district with
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: such suddennessess has stranded him there. Or suppose he has
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: quarreled with the only possible employer, or that he does
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: not like this particular work, then, no doubt the utopian state,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: which wants everyone to be just as happy as the
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: future welfare of the race permits, will come to his assistance.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: One imagines him resorting to a neat and business like
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: post office and stating his case to a civil and
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: intelligent official. In any sane state, the economic conditions of
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: every quarter of the earth will be watched as costly
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: as its meteorological phases, and a daily map of the
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: country within a radius of three or four hundred miles
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: showing all the places where labor is needed will hang
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: upon the post office wall. Do this, his attention will
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: be directed. The man out of work will decide to
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: try his luck in this place or that, and the
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: public servant the official will make a note of his
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: name verifies identity. The freedom of Utopia will not be
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: incompatible with the universal registration of thumb marks and issue
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: passes for travel and coupons for any necessary inaccommodationized way
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: to the chosen destination. There he will seek a new employer.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Such a free change of locality once or twice a
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: year from a region of restricted employment to a region
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: of labor shortage will be among the general privileges of
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: the utopian citizen. But suppose that in no district in
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: the world is their work within the capacity of this
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: particular man. Before we suppose that, we must take into
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: consideration the general assumption one is permitted to make in
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: all utopian speculations. All utopians will be reasonably well educated.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Upon utopian lines, there will be no illiterates unless they
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: are unteachable imbeciles, no rule of thumb, toilers as inadaptable
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: as trained beasts. The utopian worker will be as versatile
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: as any well educated man is on earth today, and
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: no trade union will impose a limit to his activities.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: The world will be his union. If the work he
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: does best and likes best is not to be found,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: there is still work he likes second best. Lacking his
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: proper employment, he will turn to some kindred trade. But
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: even with that adaptability, it may be that sometimes he
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: will not find work. Such a disproportion between the work
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: to be done and the people to do it may
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: arise as to present a surplus of labor everywhere. This
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: disproportion may be due to two causes. To an increase
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: of population without a corresponding increase of enterprises, or to
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: a diminution of employment throughout the world due to the
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: completion of great enterprises to economies achieved, or to the
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: operation of new and more efficient labor saving appliances. Through
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: either cause, a world state may find itself doing well
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: except for an excess of citizens of mediocre and lower quality.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: But the first cause may be anticipated by wise marriage laws.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: The full discussion of these laws will come later, But
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: here one may insist that utopia will control the increase
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: of its population without the determination and ability to limit
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: that increase as well as to stimulate it whenever it
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: is necessary, no utopia is possible. That was clearly demonstrated
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: by Malthus for all time. The second cause is not
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: so easily anticipated. But then, though its immediate result in
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: glutting the labor market is similar, its final consequences are
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: entirely different from those of the first. The whole trend
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: of a scientific mechanical civilization is continually to replace labor
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: by machinery and to increase it in its effectiveness by organization,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: and so quite independently of any increase in population, labor
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: must either fall in value until it can compete against
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: and check the cheapening process, or if that is prevented,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: as it will be in Utopia by a minimum wage
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: come out of employment. There is no apparent limit to
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: this process. But a surplus of efficient labor at the
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: minimum wage is exactly the condition that should stimulate new enterprises,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: and that in a state saturated with science and prolific
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: invention will stimulate new enterprises. And increasing surplus of available
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: labor without an absolute increase of population, and increasing surplus
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: of labor due to increasing economy and not to proliferation,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: and which therefore does not press on and disarrange the
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: food supply, is surely the ideal condition for a progressive civilization.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: I am inclined to think. Since labor will be regarded
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: as a delocalized and fluid force, it will be the
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: world state and not the big municipalities ruling the force
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: areas that will be the reserve employer of labor. Very
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: probably it will be convenient for the state to hand
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: over the surplus labor for municipal purposes, but that is
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: another question. All over the world, the labor exchanges will
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: be reporting the fluctuating pressure of economic demand and transferring
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: workers from this region of excess to that of scarcity,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: and whenever the excess is universal, the world state, failing
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: an adequate development of private enterprise, will either reduce the
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: working day and so absorb the excess, or set up
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: on foot some permanent special works of its own, paying
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: the minimum wage and allowing them to progress just as
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: slowly or just as rapidly as the ebb and flow
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: of labor dictated, but with sane marriage and birth laws.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: There is no reason to suppose such calls upon the
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: resources and an initiative of the world more than temporary
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: and exceptional occasions. End of Chapter the fifth, sections one
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: through three. Recording by Christopher Taylor,