ETHICAL ECONOMICS
A Strong Paper Read Before the State Bar Association on Sept. 1st by Rev. William Henry Talmage, Flandreau, S.D., Chairman of Social Service Commission of South Dakota, and Secretary of the Other Economic Leagues of America.
"Organize" says [Blanqui], in his History of Political Economy; "organize under whatsoever government we may, a Republic, a Kingdom or an Empire, there seems to be some secret law which continuously concentrates the wealth made by the many into the hands of the idle few. Happy our generation if Science sometime give the key."
In the opinion of a widening circle of students, this very important "key" as well as a key that is even more important, is now given us in the philosophy of the late Professor Amos Norton Craft, entitled Exodus from Poverty or The Other Economics.
The new view-point of this profound scholar suggests the basis for this paper on Ethical Economics.
According to Doctor Craft, the rule by which man has produced and distributed material things is the effort to get much while struggling to give little. This is a keen analysis and at a stroke describes the root-principle which underlies our present system of economics. As we proceed to dissect this original definition of Doctor Craft we notice that it consists of an aim, or ideal, and a man-invented means of attaining that aim. The economic objective or aim is "much desired goods;" the means to the end is a "struggle to give little".
The objective is ethical; for wealth is in harmony with Nature's ample provision for the maintenance of the race; but the man invented means to the end is unethical and unscientific. A "struggle to give little" is repressive or unscientific because it automatically creates an antagonistic economic dead lock limited to small production and small distribution, as we shall show; while it is unethical and tends to war, because such a struggle is contrary to the nobler nature of man (after business hours) and manifestly contrary to the nature and conduct of [Deity].
If we confine our thoughts to two men, we can convince ourselves that it is a physical impossibility for two men to get much from each other while struggling to give little. They might be the only inhabitants, and highly civilized; yet, governed by such a rule, Mr. A. would not give any share of his wealth to Mr. B. until forced to do so by nakedness or hunger. Likewise Mr. B. would struggle to give an equally small amount of his wealth to Mr. A.; and all their subsequent laws of economics would be adjusted to small production and small distribution. Their general average standard of living would be a bare existence. They would engender war by the simple operation of their economic law. Thus the two men would remain in an unrelieved state of poverty and "economic antagonism as of enemies" though surrounded by inexhaustible bounties of Nature and though they were highly educated and moral in their conduct outside of business hours. This effect is the same when men are a multitude and this law is extended into an intricate system of production and distribution which the finite mind can scarcely comprehend. The ignorant "struggle-to-give-little, in-the-hope-of-getting-much" is thus observed to be the cause of poverty, which, in turn, is the cause of war and a multitude of other social evils.
Our first important advance in the Science of Economics will have been made only when the thinking world learns that, all things being equal, two men, or two devils, or two gods would remain in an unrelieved state of poverty as long as they attempted to get plenty by struggling to give little; and that their impoverished condition could not be changed, while under that law, either by legislation, religion or education except to make them discontented with their fate and on this account dangerous to one another.
If we persist in building civilization upon a central law which, by its very nature, would impoverish angels and transform them into economic enemies and antagonists, we attempt to build upon a law of mutual repression and plunder. And with no further evil force in the world, other than this false economic law, poverty for all but a few is inevitable; wealth is bound to concentrate into the hands of the fittest fighters; while war in its various phases and the depravity of mankind are every forthcoming. The vain attempt to evolve a poverty perpetuating principle of economics results in a system of business worldwide in its scope and age-old in its futility wherein every major and minor law of economics is adjusted to the perpetuation of poverty, from which, for the majority, there is no escape as long as the fundamental law survives.
The importance of anything is relative. Forms of government, education and religion are indeed important. But when we retain a central law for the regulation of all industrial conduct throughout the world which tends to discontent and [viciousness] as education and religion are extended to the masses, the subject of first importance is the removal of such a law. Neglect this duty and the solution of the grave problems of our time will amount to nothing but confused and heart sickening combat with evil effects which multiply faster than they can be repressed.
With the exception of Professor Craft, our economic authorities in College and University make no analysis of the cause of poverty. A review of their books convinces one that they simply describe how the present system works. On this account Economics has been historical rather than scientific. No one should question these descriptions. In describing how the present economic system works, our ablest observers of social phenomena all agree that, in [page 2] the markets of the world, "scarcity of things desired is the one objective condition of value". At this point they halt further deductions. But this is saying that if everyone should have abundance of goods offered for sale, goods could not be sold. Scarcity of goods must be permanent; for, otherwise, the business of producing goods for sale could not be permanent. And yet "scarcity of goods" is but another expression for poverty. How, we ask, can poverty be permanent unless that poverty be permanently endured by people? People who must permanently endure poverty become dangerously discontented when educated or inspired with the belief of spiritual equality in the sight of God a common Father.
It is thus that the prominent economists lead us into the presence of a vast and hopeless economic dead-lock the cause of which has been to them, confessedly, a most profound mystery.
The analysis of our unscientific fundamental law of economics made by the author of Exodus from Poverty, solves this mystery and in doing so has performed a service to mankind the value of which is incalculable.
If it were possible for the rule of "mutual repression and plunder" to evolve peace and plenty, the Unites States of America with its many superior advantages would afford a brilliant demonstration; but, allowing for temporary advantages of a new country, America furnishes us with no such hopeful example. In the United States the daily income in 1910 was but 95 cents for each person had it been equally divided. More than that could not be produced and distributed without causing "overproduction" when mills and mines would close and crops rot in the fields.
After ages of barter, inventions and bloodshed in the effort to "get much by struggling to give little" this 95 cents represents our economic achievement of which the richest nation on earth proudly boasts. It is the measure of our glorious economic advance from the cave and the jungle. It, moreover, circumscribes and limits the possibilities of the law of "supply and demand", that magic and venerable cure-all in Political Economy.
The money value of our products from every source in 1910 was 31 [billion] (in round numbers) which included cost of raw materials; by adding another billion to allow for goods consumed and not appearing in the Government Reports and by dividing the total by the population and by 365 days of the year, we get this 95 cents per capita per day -- or poverty. Over this American ration, men juggled and exchanged in a vain effort to make a minus quantity of goods result in a plus amount of comforts. It was this 95 cents which paid for the army and navy, the [penitentiaries] and Congress, the asylums and Legislatures; it was out of this, let the Socialist observe, that all the big fortunes were skimmed and the banks supported; it paid the preacher, the teacher, the undertaker and clubbed the wolf in general. This was all that these expenditures could come out of, for this was all that was produced during 1910 which is a fair representation of other years; and goods are not increased by handling them neither are they changed by being exchanged. Even the middle-man did not increase the amount of goods offered for sale and therefore he did not lower the selling price received by the producer of goods. During that year many mills and mines and workmen were idle because they had produced more than could be sold.
In 1881 our daily income per capita was 55 cents; in 1900 it was 67½ cents and in 1910 it was 95 cents. But this seeming increase in our wealth is but a bait of the ignoramus; it, in reality, indicates that products are becoming scarcer in the markets and that, on this account, their money-value is swelling. We should be as happy and optimistic over this phenomena as the man with the dropsy who discovers that his limbs are now beginning to bloat. Our present industrial outlook would be splendid if people could eat "money-values" for breakfast or wear "swelling money-values" for Easter bonnets. From the view-point of people, however, things are wealth; while money-value is but the measure of the absence of wealth or the absence of things from people. Were we beyond the elementary stage in the science of Economics we would always place a minus sign before the dollar mark in Government Reports and on stock exchanges to indicate the amount of absent wealth in the nation; for, if people had abundance of the things represented by the dollar mark there would be a zero following that sign. It will suffice, in passing, to note the fact that on account of an abundance of drinking water there is no money value estimate of this kind of American wealth appearing in the Government Reports or upon stock exchanges. While, on the other hand, if drinking water could be incorporated and its supply reduced, its money-value would immediately appear and America would count an additional amount of wealth to her present total, which would increase as the quantity of water decreased.
Hypnotized by ages of error, which is a thousand times worse than the belief in witchcraft, the world cherishes the idea that it is a mark of constructive statesmanship to retain a system of economics which keeps scarce the things people want, then with the imbecility of idiots, count as wealth the measure of this poverty of the people.
Assured by the inexorable laws of causation we may be certain that as long as we retain a central law of Economics, the essence of which is "mutual repression and plunder", it will evolve an infinite variety of repressive and destructive effects; and those effects (one of them being war) will defeat the purposes of all men who would build the lofty edifice of civilization without first inspecting the treacherous character of its foundation.
"Struggle to give little" is the business rule of tigers. [page 3]
Men retain the same law in the industrial pen and seem satisfied of great progress because they have hidden from direct gaze, its teeth and claws. This sort of self-interest is not the result of "herd-instinct" but of herd ignorance.
In God's sight plunder is not less plunder because its ways are indirect. And in His sight a business system based on repression and plunder is not one whit less damnable because it is ignorantly adopted by the whole race of men inhabiting the earth.
The claw and tooth of Economics are so adroitly concealed that the Bishop, for example, can purchase goods at a "fair price" without the thought of inhumanity. Whereas, if plundering were direct he would probably choose death by slow starvation before he would consent to plunder the widow and the orphan. But because grasping is three degrees indirect he ignorantly robs them without mercy when he goes to the store to buy goods which the widow and her children make for the markets. Even the good man cannot seek a business bargain for his clothes without compelling his merchant to buy at a business bargain, the lowest price possible, which in turn compels the wholesaler to grasp from the sweat shop [overseer], and thus the widow in her miserable fight for life in some dark room of the [defenseless] slum is the Bishop's victim and the middle-men are but his agents in the plunder. "Blessed are the meek" -- not yet. The crust of bread and the sunshine of existence are taken from the toiling mother as effectually and as certainly as though the representative of Christ had gone as a thief in the night and taken them with this own hands.
Our war-like law of Economics and the system of industry adjusted to it has cost the world over 40 [billion] of human lives on bloody battle fields, according to the estimate of Professor Trueblood, or it has caused the violent deaths of more persons than have lived on the whole earth during the past six centuries; and it has caused vastly more unnecessary suffering than this on the undramatic battle fields of industry where lack of nourishment, over-worked motherhood, child-labor and worry have reaped and are today reaping their [gruesome] harvest of criminality, disease, insanity and premature death.
The industrial rule of mutual repression and plunder has so perverted the intellects of men that they have assumed that might makes right in the fight for plenty because might alone seems best able to survive in such an ungodly struggle where there is never enough to go round. Such a struggle deifies the sword and mocks the Sermon on the Mount; it makes [Nietzsche] a master, and Christ a fool; and yet, with sublime irony we not only consent to this evil method of business but holy men of God and mighty advocates of justice, defend it in the name of the religion which is defeats, the "life more abundant" which it denies to the many, and the Christ which it puts to an open shame. While wise men in the watch-towers of intellectual progress, responsible for the thought and action of men and nations are still in favor of evolving further that law of economics which if adopted by God, would transform Him into a mighty demon and plunge the whole wide universe into a warring impoverished realm where an infinite grasper would brood over all.
Why should men cling for ages to a law which they would not that God should adopt for a single hour!
Doctor Craft breaks this mental spell by calling our attention to an economic law which the Master of men suggested, and by inventing a plan by which a system of economics adjusted to that law, might be substituted for the present. It is impossible in the space allotted to this paper to elaborate upon the details of this transitional plan which may be reviewed at length in the authors own work. We desire to show reasons why a change of economic principles must be made rather than to dwell upon how the change should be inaugurated; for it is certain that as long as men believe that it is possible to reform an error by evolving the error the field of reform will be divided into contending groups of men who believe that their theory, if tested by experiment, would solve the problem of industrial unrest, social injustice and a multitude of other evils which grow out of a social poverty; while in the confusion no advance will be possible because no suggested change in the fundamental principle of economics is made. We have erred not by the case but by the principle and that is a thousand times worse. Wrong at the source, the number of wrongs transcends all counting. A separate case or some special evil might be segregated and cured were it not for the existence of the source of more evil, yet to be cured.
Jesus the Carpenter's Son advocated another central law and the only other rule imaginable to which a system of economics might be adjusted and evolved, when he said: "Give and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, shall men give unto your bosom. For with the same measure ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again." Luke 6 38.
Yet we blink at this divine information like bats at the noon-day sun! It has no place in commercial activity, courts of justice, neither has it a place, in this sense of practical application, in the pulpit which professes to teach the words of the Master. We seem to have such a superstitious fear of our cave-men's economics that we dare not question its authority or permit God Almighty to do so.
Grasping and giving are the only two alternatives imaginable on which a system of economics might be constructed and evolved.
We have tested one principle, and but one. One system has been evolving during the past ages and it has been adjusted to grasping.
In all recorded history of the race, under every form of government and every degree of education, religion and culture, its invariable result has been poverty for the majority and war in its different aspects. This ought to be sufficient data to warrant an inference, and to justify an indictment of failure. Judged by its fault the economic tree is conspicuously corrupt; Nevertheless, lacking courage to question the inherited business methods of apes and jackals, men foolishly assume that the law of "repression and plunder;" (or the effort to get much while struggling to give little), will eventually result in peace and plenty if properly educated, properly governed, properly Christianized, [cooperated], socialized, federated or armed with man-killing weapons, or evolved or -- et cetera ad infinitum. [page 4]
Some people are so optimistic that they believe that a man headed for hell will arrive at last in heaven provided he is educated, travels far enough and keeps smiling.
Not even the Fifty Thousand who, according to Mr. Bernard Shaw "do the thinking for the rest of the world," seem able to learn that the war-club principle of economics, highly evolved, becomes a [Gatling] gun system of business. Evidently the said "Fifty Thousand" are of the opinion that two men could eventually get much wealth while struggling to give little, provided that struggle were socialized and highly evolved. The European war, however, is evidence of the economic [fallacy] of these lime-light directors of the brain monopoly.
For error, we would say that abolition is the only remedy, not evolution. Abolish the poverty-perpetuating principle of economics and substitute in its place the wealth perpetuating law, would seem to us to be the sane solution, although it is a rather lonely message in a world that is chloroformed with a faith in misdirected evolution.
The notion of giving (adopted as the dominant law of a system of production and distribution of wealth) is as much a stranger in modern Christendom as it was in pagan society a thousand years before the birth of Christ. That principle has never been for a moment subjected to the law of evolution. No one can affirm or deny with the positive assurance of science, that a social "struggle to give much" would result in success or failure; for that principle has never yet been remotely tested in a system of economics including a balanced proportion of industries, sources of raw materials, conducted under expert supervision aiming to make wealth a virtue and poverty a vice, and conducted absolutely independent of the present grasping system.
Neither Jesus nor his Disciples established such a system. The former who proclaimed it was crucified before his economic reform could be effected; the latter, thinking that the world would soon come to an end, pooled their few belongings and forgot about establishing a kingdom of production and distribution adjusted to the new economic law which the Master gave. They practiced giving in its old narrow voluntary unorganized sense without seeking intelligently to found a kingdom of industry adjusted to that law, and soon found that surrounded by graspers, they had nothing more to give. In other words they cast their "pearls before swine."
The Carpenter of Nazareth was under the dominance of our system of economics, and our system is fundamentally the same as ancient nations like Egypt and China, Jesus called this system Mammon. He told them who had any respect for his opinions that men could not serve God and Mammon; which is to say, that we cannot serve the best interests of government, or of Church or of Home while we adhere to present economics. He called attention to the social phenomena that Mammon and the poor are [inseparable] companions. He gave the ethical law as a way of escape, provided a system of economics, or in his words, a "kingdom," be first established and adjusted to that law. He named His proposed righteous system of business "The Kingdom of heaven at hand".
When new truths are presented to the world new words must be invented to express them or else old words must be used and invested with a new meaning. The old words contained in the phrase "the kingdom of heaven" already pregnant with a peculiar social significance to the Jew, were chosen by the Jewish philosopher to express a new economic as well as a broader spiritual truth which he came to teach. The phrase "the kingdom of heaven" and its equivalent "the kingdom of God" [occur] over one hundred times in the New Testament and are the principle technical terms contained in the Gospel as that "good-news-to-be-poor" came from the lips of the Master. The peculiar new truth infused into the old phrase could not be conveyed to the masses except by showing its relation to objects already familiar to men. The Parables were in all probability invented to serve this purpose for almost without exception they illuminate vividly the virtues of this other economic law as well as spiritual truths.
If there was one point which Jesus dwelt upon more than another it was upon the importance of establishing a system of business adjusted to a scientific and ethical central law. The very starting point of His proposed kingdom of ethical business was to be the establishment of the "righteousness of God" in the realm of material things. That, above everything else, in His opinion, should be sought first, last and always. That none might miss the importance of this vital industrial necessity, he exclaimed: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and (speaking expressly of material things) will be added unto you. For your heavenly father knoweth that ye have need of these things."
One needs not to be a theologian in order to understand that the righteousness of God injected into a system of production and distribution would require an immediate abandonment of the law of grasping and a complete adjustment to the law of giving. The new <old> law is not to be patched with new cloth, says Jesus.
This "kingdom at hand" is the central thought of the Gospel, as Christ preached it and as the world sadly needs it. It was made the first supplication of Christian prayer to which all other supplications are subordinate in the words: "Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Just why the Church has failed to emphasize this [religio-economic] truth is not more mysterious than the failure of philosophers and statesmen to point out its practical significance and value to the race.
God made the heavens and [the] [page 5] earth, but he did not finish them. The Carpenter's Son gave the world the peaceable wealth-producing "key" to Economics, but he did not establish an economic system adjusted to it. As man is entrusted with the noble task of finishing creation, beautifying the wilderness, redeeming the waste places in Nature and human nature, harnessing the elements, banishing disease and ignorance, so is man entrusted with the task of adjusting human industry to that peace producing ethical principle which God himself employs.
And this readjustment would not require a change in human nature. Neither would it cause a ripple of confusion or hardship to present commerce in its substitution, if the plans of Doctor Craft were carried forward by Congress.
By returning to our former illustration of the two men who occupy the world alone, and by thinking for a moment, we can see that if they would mutually agree to change their business rule and aim to get wealth by struggling to give wealth, the effect upon their conduct during business hours would be revolutionary, and the effect upon their fortunes would be magical. We shall show that they would both obtain wealth irrespective of their religious opinions, their education or the selfishness of their human nature. Change the central law of Economics and intelligent self-interest would redeem the present unredeemed portion of the world. The fact is strikingly apparent even now that men are almost without exception better at heart than the evil law of a grasping business system which dominated them, for outside of business hours they prefer to practice the opposite law.
It is not therefore a change in human nature but a change in our subhuman accursed rule of business, that should command the attention of all thoughtful men.
An economic system does not consist in the moral or ethical quality of men's motives for we have shown that Saints could not get much while struggling to give little; while, if we are to believe Christ, sinners might get wealth by struggling to give wealth.
In a system of economics adjusted to the ethical law of giving your self-interest, even if not impelled by benevolent motives, would prompt you to assist others to the limit of your ability; for under that central law all competitors are givers, not graspers, as at present, and the competitor-in-giving who is best endowed mentally, materially, physically and morally could give the most to your self-interest. What is true of your self-interest is true of mine. It is as good for your neighbor as it is for yourself.
Therefore, if the dominant law of business were reversed, each individual, instead of destroying life by direct and indirect methods and instead of repressing the wealth of competitors, would assist his neighbor to construct power machinery and labor saving devices and efficient methods with which to produce and distribute the idle bounties of Nature; and it would follow that each individual would give free access to the sources of raw products and everything material and would urge and beg that immediate uses be made of them. Each would do this, if prompted by no higher motive than the "extra loaves and fishes" that such conduct would bring toward himself. Substitute an ethical for our present unethical law in a system of production and distribution and intelligent self-interest would struggle to give productive powers to people and be rewarded "an hundred fold" as Jesus said, by the material wealth that would flow self-ward.
On this account education, efficiency, morality, a high standard of living and every other stimulant to the working powers and the happiness of people would be urged with all the energy that Germany now urges preparation for war; and would be urged by cold-eyed but intelligent self-interest as well as by benevolent motives.
"The notion", says Doctor Craft "that the moral regeneration of men is necessary before they will desire to escape from poverty and war by changing a foul business law, shows a strange blindness to what men are now doing. Unregenerate men will now endure toil and risk their lives to abolish poverty from their loved ones. Bad men will lie, steal and kill to escape want; they will play the hypocrite, give aims and advocate political and religious doctrines which they do not believe, if the salary is [sufficient] to enable them to banish poverty. Bad men would therefore outwardly conform" to a business system of giving, if it should be clearly demonstrated to them in advance by the Government of the United States that by means of such a system they would receive a hundred times more worldly goods. If this be true of men just as they are, the abolition of poverty and war by changing our unscientific and antagonistic business rule, need not wait for the individual regeneration of the human race; either need it wait for a miraculous change in human nature. The next logical step in the direction of constructive reform would therefore be such a scientific Government Experiment as is proposed by Doctor Craft that we may see in advance the good or evil effects of a fundamental change in the present system of [economics].
The Government Economic Experiment Unit of Industries proposed and defended by Doctor Craft which suggests should be created by the Government for the purpose of testing the merits of an opposite basic law for the production and distribution of material things, could not be a scientific experiment unless it was a complete readjustment to that strange and at present impossible law of giving. And it certainly is not an easy task to think independently of the present system of grasping to which we have been schooled for a life time. To be logical every economic law of the present system of economics must be abandoned in such a proposed Experiment [page 6] and therefore every industrial law would necessarily have a strange look because the fundamental law to which it is adjusted is a stranger in the present industrial world. It is well in this connection to heed the words of Mr. Mill: "It is the strength, not the weakness of a [systematic] intellect, that it does not shrink from conclusions because they have a strange look, when they are the necessary corollaries from premises which the thinker has not ceased to regard as true."
That a struggle to give much would certainly result in material wealth for those adjusted to such a law in a system of economics, may be physically demonstrated by a most simple experiment, as follows: Let two persons represent the human race. Place in the pocket of one a ball of red cord and in the pocket of the other a ball of white, which, when taken together represents the varieties of undeveloped material sources awaiting the touch of human hands to produce <and [distribute]> [but] ten yards of red and white cord in the hand of each party respectively represent plenty. It will be observed that under the ethical law when each struggles to give much in order to get much, that both will soon be in possession of ten yards of white cord and ten yards of the red or, in other words, in possession of material wealth.
By the same method the fallacy of grasping may be physically demonstrated. If one yard of each kind of cord be taken as the equivalent of poverty or a bare existence we would observe that under the rule of "struggling to give little" only one yard of red and white cord could be unwound and delivered into the hands of the two parties who represent the human race, thus proving the poverty-perpetuating effect of the fundamental law of grasping.
If the central law, the very heart of our industrial kingdom on which all else rests for security, is unscientific and a perpetual menace to the well-being of the majority of the race, it would seem to us that the very beginning of broad statesmanship, of prudent economics and of consistent religion would consist in a determined wisely-directed effort to secure the substitution of the opposite fundamental law which would harmonize with ethics as well as with the dictates of common sense and, in all probability, enable mankind to eventually enjoy permanent peace and an abundance of material things.
The following suggestions are made by the Other Economics League not as improvement of the present economic system or to be operative under any of the laws or customs pertaining to present production and distribution, but as practical steps necessary to be taken in the event an experiment be attempted, to test the merits of the other principle of economics. Therefore the questions arising in the mind of the student who considers the following suggestions should not be settled by attempting to make them harmonize with present conditions but the question of importance is the harmony of the following suggestions with the fundamental law of giving.
The experiment should be inaugurated by a special Federal Commission of Industrial Experts authorized by Congress and appointed by the President, which shall be empowered to proceed to make and submit an estimate of the appropriation necessary to secure suitable locations, sources of raw materials, [equipment] for essential industries of all kinds and the cost of temporary living quarters for enough employees and their families to man a complete circle of industries, within the proposed Economic Experiment Station and its branches. Said Commission, when their estimate is presented and appropriation secured through Congress, shall then proceed to enroll such as volunteer to become employees under this system of Government experiment and to select from such by careful examination, expert heads for the various departments of industries, as far as possible, and proceed at once to equip and complete a well balanced circle of industries. The heads of the various industries so selected shall constitute a Board of Superintendents within said Station and shall be a part of the same, having complete management and control of the Station and holding their position as long as superior competency and good behavior are manifested by them.
There shall be no prices for the bounties of nature, labor and products to members within the Government Economic Experiment Station.
Money or any substitute for money shall not be used as a medium of exchange within the proposed Station or its branches except in the preparatory steps taken by the Government Commission of Industrial Experts when securing the various properties necessary to establish the said Station.
Interest, rent and debts shall be prohibited within the Government Economic Experiment Station.
After the complete establishment of the proposed Station and its branches, the first general move shall be industrial. The best known labor-saving devices and methods shall be introduced by the employees into all operations and in all industries, including domestic and personal service.
Labor, displaced by labor saving methods, shall be [reemployed] making and using the best labor saving devices for producing the highest standard of living for the members of the said Station.
The Government Economic Experiment Station shall produce goods to be used only by those employed within the Station and its branches.
During the early stages of the Station the scarcer products of labor, until that time when such products cease to be scarce, shall be distributed by the Board of Superintendents among the members as their common good requires. They shall first distribute [page 7] in the interest of industry and afterward in the interest of comfort, pleasures and recreation. Scarcer products to be distributed in the interests of comfort, pleasure or recreation shall be distributed by lot. The exception to this rule shall be made in the interest of "reward for merit" or exceptional service. This shall apply to any person who invents a device which displaces labor or devises a plan by which greater happiness and culture can be procured for the members of the Station. This reward in addition to marks of honor, shall consist in such person being placed in an advance list and shall precede those who are to receive products by lot. The Board of Superintendents shall decide to whom this distinction and special favor shall be donated.
All kinds of property shall be distributed and retained by members of the proposed Station under the rule of "the common good" but they shall acquire no private right to anything except the right to enjoy during life that which has been donated to them.
Position of service, other than those made by the Federal Commission of Industrial Experts, shall be determined by civil service test examinations conducted from time to time by the Board of Superintendents; provided, that no one shall be excluded from such examinations.
Every member of the Government Economic Experiment Station shall, under penalty of expulsion from the Station by the Board of Superintendents, faithfully perform any and all tasks assigned to him by those in authority over him in service; provided that grievances may be adjusted by a Standing Committee appointed by the Board of Superintendents, whose judgment shall be binding; provided, further, that if any hard menial labor is not displaced by labor saving devices by the end of five years after the completed Station began operations, the superintendents themselves shall be required by the Federal Commission of Industrial Experts to take their turns at such hard menial labor equally with all others.
Hours of labor in the beginning of the proposed Station shall correspond to the hours of labor then existing in the world <nation> at large, but as the object of this Station and experiment for humanity is to attain the highest standard of living with the minimum of labor time, the hours of labor shall decrease uniformly as this standard of living requires less of labor time.
After the Federal Commission of Industrial Experts has made selection of the Board of Superintendents as heretofore described, they shall select from out [of] the remaining volunteers a number of persons representing each industry and vocation and even the unemployed and unskilled in a proportion which shall fairly represent, in miniature, the nation as a whole. Then after these persons have been transported to the various points of the station and placed under the supervision of the proper superintendency, they shall proceed to build dams, to develop hydro-electric power, and to make and use the best known devices for displacing and reemploying labor and for the building and equipping of permanent homes, universities, houses of worship, places of recreation and amusement and such like.
The Federal Government shall provide for such goods as cannot be produced within the United States and for frankage of commodities from one point of its Economic Experiment Station or another, provide free transportation for members of the same while on duty, while royalties on patents should be paid the present owner by the National Government, because this experiment, being for the public good, should be completely independent of the present system of economics.
Should the first experiment in The Other Economics be successful, the members of the Government Economic Experiment Station and their families shall not be arbitrarily removed or distressed by the addition of others from without, but shall be permitted to remain in the enjoyment of wealth and leisure while the Federal Commission of Industrial Experts proceed elsewhere to accept donations of such property as should be collectively owned and the voluntary services of laborers and to organize business of the whole country in accordance with the first Station, so that finally the high standard of living enjoyed in this object lesson would be enjoyed by the whole population of our country.
Should the experiment prove a failure, after fair trial, the improvements and property of all kinds shall be sold by the Federal Commission of Industrial Experts and the proceeds arising therefrom be equally distributed among the members of the Economic Station at the time of its abandonment. Provided that a sufficient amount of said proceeds be retained by the Government to cover the expenses of establishing and maintaining said Experiment Station exclusive of salaries.
Inasmuch as the present economic system, based on grasping, during the history of mankind, has resulted in poverty for the majority of the people of every nation, giving sufficient proof that it must continue to do so as long as it continues to be the law of business and inasmuch as poverty, or the fear of poverty, is the enemy of the Home, State and Church, that it limits the noblest efforts of pulpit and fraternity, subsidizes the press, poisons the wells and streams of justice, stops the wheels of industry, feeds upon virtue, intimidates free men until they become trembling abject slaves, sets brother against brother, is generating an inferior race by forcing children into the streets, the bleaching vats and atmosphere of filth and crime, is resulting in the brutal struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest fighters; and inasmuch as it would be unwise and exceedingly dangerous to apply any radical theory to the government as a whole without first testing its claims by experiment, we advocate a Government Economic Experiment such as is described by Mr. Amos Norton Craft, Ph.D., in his philosophy entitled "The Other Economics," to be established by Congress, in which the principles of The Other Economics shall be tried and thoroughly tested independent of party politics, sectarianism or commercialism.
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