“Oh, of course we’re all bloody fools, except you,” snarled Crass. “When they was servin’ out the sense they give you such a ‘ell of a lot there wasn’t none left for nobody else.”
“If there wasn’t something wrong with your minds,” continued Owen, “you would be able to see that we might have ‘Plenty of Work’ and yet be in a state of destitution. The miserable wretches who toil sixteen or eighteen hours a day—father, mother, and even the little children—making matchboxes, or shirts or blouses, have ‘Plenty of Work,’ but I for one don’t envy them. Perhaps you think that if there was no machinery, and we all had to work thirteen or fourteen hours a day in order to obtain a bare living, we should not be in a condition of poverty? Talk about there being something the matter with your minds—if there were not you wouldn’t talk one day about Tariff Reform as a remedy for unemployment, and then the next day admit that machinery is the cause of it! Tariff Reform won’t do away with machinery, will it?” ...
No one answered, because none of them knew of any remedy; and Crass began to feel sorry that he had reintroduced the subject at all.
“In the near future,” continued Owen, “it is probable that horses will be almost entirely superseded by motor cars and electric trams. As the services of horses will no longer be required, all but a few will die out; they will no longer be bred to the same extent as formerly. We can’t blame the horses for allowing themselves to be exterminated. They have not sufficient intelligence to understand what’s being done. Therefore, they will submit tamely to the extinction of the greater number of their kind.
“As we have seen, a great deal of the work which was formerly done by human beings is now being done by machinery. This machinery belongs to a few people; it is being worked for the benefit of those few, just the same as were the human beings it displaced.
“These few have no longer any need of the services of so many human workers, so they propose to exterminate them! The unnecessary human beings are to be allowed to starve to death! And they are also to be taught that it is wrong to marry and breed children, because the Sacred Few do not require so many people to work for them as before!”
“Yes, and you’ll never be able to prevent it, mate!” shouted Crass.
“Why can’t we?”
“Because it can’t be done!” cried Crass, fiercely. “It’s impossible!” ...