The Next Step: A Plan for Economic World Federation

by Scott Nearing

There are two groups of human instincts in ceaseless contention for supremacy—the possessive and the creative. Both are of immediate economic importance, and the triumph of the one usually means the subordination of the other. The instincts which urge in the direction of acquisition and accumulation tend to make the man a conservator. Once let him possess an abundance of the world's goods and his chief object is to hold what he has gained. The instincts which urge toward construction and creation tend to make man an innovator, initiator, an improver. The side of man's nature that urges him to possess, directs him toward wealth and power. The side of his nature that leads him to create points to invention, to craftmanship, to artistry. Thus the possessive and the creative instincts are not merely at odds. Possession leads to status while creation leads to improvement.

There are some natures that are definitely inclined toward acquisition. There are others as firmly set in the direction of creation. For such natures the social standards possess little importance. They have their bent and they follow it. The great mass of men, however, have no positive set in either direction. Their lives will be primarily possessive or primarily creative, depending upon the kind of training that they receive.

Modern society lays its emphasis on possession and accumulation, and upon the wealth and power which they yield. The owner of land or of capital, under the present economic order, is not required to work for his living. His rents and dividends furnish him a source of income far more regular and much more dependable than the wage of the worker, or even than the salary of the man higher up. The rewards of the property owner, moreover, are far larger than those of the worker. Compare the income tax returns of Germany, Britain and the United States with the wage scales from the same countries. The incomes above ten thousand dollars (two thousand pounds or 40,000 marks in pre-war values) per year are derived largely or exclusively from the ownership of property. It pays far better to own than it does to work. The ownership of capital, like the ownership of land, carries with it power over those who must use the capital and work the land, thus setting up an owning group or class which is able to control the lives of the workers, at least to the extent of taking a part of their product and living upon it without rendering any commensurate service in return. With the economic rewards go social honors and distinctions, and the wealthy enjoy social as well as economic privileges. They develop a system of dress, of language, of manners and customs that will distinguish them as far as possible from the common herd, namely, those who work for a living. Veblen describes the process admirably in his "Theory of the Leisure Class." The leisure class, he says, has its origin in some form of ownership, on which it builds the structure of its prerogatives.

The existence of an owning, ruling class divides society into factions, whose contentions threaten the destruction of any social group in which they take place. From the intolerable social situation which they create, there seems to be but one logical means of escape, and that is through the establishment of a society in which labor and not parasitism is the ideal toward which children are taught to strive.

Such a society would shift the emphasis from possession to creation (production) by rewarding the worker rather than the owner. This result may be accomplished quite simply by giving the chief rewards to those who create, and by denying to the owner any direct reward for his ownership. Another step in the same direction could be taken by limiting individual ownership to the things that men use, and concentrating in the producing group the ownership of all productive tools.

When economic rewards are withdrawn from possession and given to creation, it will pay better to create than it will to own. Furthermore, since ownership of itself would involve no power over others, another important incentive to accumulation would be removed.

A producers' society, as a matter of course, would accord the most honor to those who engaged in productive activity, thus registering the social opinion in favor of creating rather than of possessing and exploiting. With the economic and the social rewards going to producers, the young of each generation would learn that it was more worth while to be a producer than to be an owner.

Again a producers' society would aim to secure the common participation in the necessary social tasks—the drudgery and the "dirty-work." With the essential work performed in part by all able-bodied persons, no stigma would attach to those who were engaged in it, the class of economic pariahs would be eliminated, and each participant in the necessary economic work of the world would feel that he belonged to the group in which he was playing so important a rôle.

"But," argues the doubter, "all of this is against human nature. How is it possible to expect that men will stop possessing, or will lose the desire for possession?"

They cannot be expected to do either, of course. But it so happens that, in any industrial society, the group living on its ownership is a very small one compared with the group living by its labor. The preference, in an industrial community, can therefore easily incline to labor rather than to ownership. As for the chief rewards of life going to producers rather than to owners, this is historically practicable. Greek society worked out an elaborate system of honors and rewards for those who could create. Human nature has not been fairly or adequately tested in recent years. Only certain of its phases have been developed by social demands, and those phases—the possessive instincts—are among the least socially advantageous of human qualities.