The increase of population and the normal advances in science and industry both demand a volume of product adequate to cover the necessary increases in equipment.
3. The people who do the work must dispose of the products they turn out.
They may consume them all, or they may reserve a portion of them for new roads, for additional rolling stock, for the advancement of art and learning. Whatever the character of the decision, the right and power to make it rests with those who produce the goods of which a disposition is being made.
4. Justice and fair dealing must be embodied in the scheme of production and distribution.
This does not mean absolute justice, but as much justice as the collective intelligence and will of the community are able to put into force. For the attainment of such a result, the forms of social life must be constantly altered to keep pace with economic change.
5. The foregoing principles must apply, not to one man, or class, or people, but to all men, all classes and all peoples.
Recent events have shown that an injury to one is an injury to all. Reasoning, foresight and experience will convince the people of the world that a benefit to one is a benefit to all. While men continue to live together, their livelihood problems must be thought about collectively, and the solutions that are determined upon must be applied to all, without discrimination.
How shall such results be obtained? By what means is it possible to lead men to a world vision? Who can persuade them to work toward the building of a sounder society than that with which the world is now laboring?
Of all the issues that confront the teachers of men, this is one of the most pressing and most insistent. Those who have taken upon themselves the task of seeking out and of expounding ideas have seldom faced a graver responsibility than that with which they are at the moment confronted. World facts demand world thoughts and world acts, before the human race can adopt saner, wiser and more enlightened economic policies. World thoughts and acts are impossible without world understanding. Therefore it is world understanding that is most imperatively needed in this critical hour.
The people of the world have many things in common—economic interests, science, art, ideas, ideals. Ranged against these common interests there are the traditions, prejudices, hatreds, national barriers, sectarian differences, language obstacles and racial conflicts that have proved so effective in keeping the peoples separated. The common interests are the vital means of social advancement, and it is upon them that the emphasis of constructive thinking must be laid in an effort to promote world understanding.