Busman. Of course. But in the meantime we’ve dumped five hundred thousand tropical Robots down on the Argentine pampas to grow corn. Would you mind telling me how much you pay a pound for bread?
Helena. I’ve no idea. (All smile.)
Busman. Well, I’ll tell you. It now costs two cents in good old Europe. A pound of bread for two cents, and the Humanity League— (Designates Helena) —knows nothing about it. (To Men) Miss Glory, you don’t realize that even that’s too expensive. (All Men chuckle.) Why, in five years’ time I’ll wager—
Helena. What?
Busman. That the cost of everything will be a tenth of what it is today. Why, in five years we’ll be up to our ears in corn and—everything else.
Alquist. Yes, and all the workers throughout the world will be unemployed.
Domin. (Seriously. Rises) Yes, Alquist, they will. Yes, Miss Glory, they will. But in ten years Rossum’s Universal Robots will produce so much corn, so much cloth, so much everything that things will be practically without price. There will be no poverty. All work will be done by living machines. Everybody will be free from worry and liberated from the degradation of labor. Everybody will live only to perfect himself.
Helena. Will he?
Domin. Of course. It’s bound to happen. Then the servitude of man to man and the enslavement of man to matter will cease. Nobody will get bread at the cost of life and hatred. The Robots will wash the feet of the beggar and prepare a bed for him in his house.
Alquist. Domin, Domin, what you say sounds too much like Paradise. There was something good in service and something great in humility. There was some kind of virtue in toil and weariness.