That is politics, you say; but we in our new world do not use the word politics as one of contempt. We really believe that public sentiment is in the long run the best authority, and the appeal to public sentiment is at once a social privilege and a social service. What we strive to do is to clear the channels of appeal, and avoid favoritism and stagnation. To that end we maintain, in every art and every science and every department of human thought, endless numbers of centers of free, independent, co-operative activity, so that every man who has an inspiration, or a new idea, can find some group to support him or can form a new group of his own.
This is our "Anarchism in intellectual production," and it is the method under which in capitalist society men organize all their clubs and societies and churches. Devout members of the Roman Catholic Church will be startled to be told that theirs is an Anarchist organization; but nevertheless, such is the case. The Catholic Church owns a great deal of property, and speculates in real estate, and to that extent it is a capitalist institution. It holds a great many people by fear, and to that extent it is a feudal institution. But in so far as members of the church believe in it and love it and contribute of their free will to its support, they are organizing by the method which all Anarchists recommend and desire to apply to the whole of society. Anarchist clubs and Christian churches are both free associations for the advocacy of certain ideas, the only difference being in the ideas they advocate.
In our new world such organizations have been multiplied many fold, and form a vast superstructure of intellectual activity, built upon the foundation of the standard wage. In this new world all the people are free. They are free, not merely from oppression, but from the fear of oppression; they have leisure and plenty, and they take part naturally and simply in the intellectual life. The old, of course, have not got over the dullness which a lifetime of drudgery impressed upon them, but the young are growing up in a world without classes, and in which it seems natural that everyone should be educated and everyone should have ideas. They earn their standard wage, and devote their spare time to some form of intellectual or artistic endeavor, and spend their spare money in paying writers and artists and musicians and actors to stimulate and entertain them.
These latter are the ways of distinction in our new society; these are the paths to power. The only rich men in our world are the men who produce intellectual goods; the great artists, orators, musicians, actors and writers, who are free to serve or not to serve, as they see fit, and can therefore hold up the public for any price they care to charge. Just now there is eager discussion going on in our world as to whether it is proper for an opera singer, or a moving picture star, or a novelist, to make a million dollars. Our newspapers are full of discussions of the question whether anyone can make a million dollars honestly, and whether men of genius should exploit their public. Some point out that our most eminent opera singer spends his millions in endowing a conservatory of art; but others maintain that it would be better if he lowered his prices of admission, and let the public use its money in its own way. The extremists are busy founding what they call the Ten-cent Society, whose members agree to boycott all singers and actors who charge more than ten cents admission, and all moving picture stars who receive more than a hundred thousand dollars a year for their service. These "Ten-centers" do not object to paying the money, but they object to the commercializing of art, and declare especially that the moral effect of riches is such that no rich person should ever, under any circumstances, be allowed to influence the youth of the nation. In this some of the greatest writers join them, and renounce their copyrights, and agree to accept a laureateship from some union of workers, who pay them a generous stipend for the joy and honor of being associated with their names. The greatest poet of our time began life as a newsboy, and so the National Newsvenders' Society has adopted him, and taken his name, and pays him ten thousand dollars a year for the privilege of publishing his works.
CHAPTER LXXIV
MANKIND REMADE
(Discusses human nature and its weaknesses, and what happens to these in the new world.)
We have briefly sketched the economic arrangements of the co-operative commonwealth. Let us now consider what are the effects of these arrangements upon the principal social diseases of capitalism.
The first and most dreadful of capitalism's diseases is war, and the economic changes here outlined have placed war, along with piracy and slavery, among the half-forgotten nightmares of history. We have broken the "iron ring," and are no longer dependent upon foreign concessions and foreign markets for the preservation of our social system and the aggrandizement of a ruling class. We can stay quietly at home and do our own work, and as we produce nearly everything we need, we no longer have to threaten our neighbors. Our neighbors know this, and therefore they do not arm against us, and we have no pretext to arm against them. We take toward all other civilized nations the attitude which we have taken toward Canada for the past hundred years.
We have a small and highly trained army, a few regiments of which are located at strategic points over the country. This army we regard and use as we do our fire department. When there is widespread damage by fire or flood or storm or earthquake, we rush the army to the spot to attend to the work of rescue and rebuilding. Also, we have a small navy in international service; for, of course, we are no longer an independent and self-centered nation; we have come to realize that we are part of the world community, and have taken our place as one state in the International Socialist Federation. We send our delegates to the world parliament, and we place our resources at the disposal of the world government. However, it now takes but a small army and navy to preserve order in the world. We govern the backward nations, but the economic arrangements of the world are such that we are no longer driven to exploit and oppress them. We send them teachers instead of soldiers, and as there are really very few people in the world who fight for the love of fighting, we have little difficulty in preserving peace. We pay the backward peoples a fair price for their products which we need. Our world government takes no money out of these countries, but spends it for the benefit of those who live in the countries, to teach them and train their young generations for self-government.
Next, what are the effects of our new arrangements upon political corruption and graft? The social revolution has broken the prestige of wealth. Money will buy things, but it no longer buys power, the right to rule other men; it no longer buys men's admiration. Everybody now has money, and nobody is any longer afraid of starvation. It is no longer the fashion to save money—any more than it is the fashion to carry revolvers in drawing-rooms or to wear chain mail in place of underclothing. So our political life is cleansed of the money influence. People now get power by persuading their fellows, not by buying them or threatening them. The world is no longer full of men ravenous for jobs, and ready to sell their soul for a "position." So it is no longer possible to build up a "machine" based on desire for office.