Government on a Neighboring Planet

72:5.1The in­dus­trial sit­u­a­tion among this peo­ple is far from their ide­als; cap­i­tal and la­bor still have their trou­bles, but both are be­com­ing ad­justed to the plan of sin­cere co-op­er­a­tion. On this unique con­ti­nent the work­ers are in­creas­ingly be­com­ing share­hold­ers in all in­dus­trial con­cerns; ev­ery in­tel­li­gent la­borer is slowly be­com­ing a small cap­i­tal­ist.

72:5.2So­cial an­tag­o­nisms are less­en­ing, and good will is grow­ing apace. No grave eco­nomic prob­lems have arisen out of the abo­li­tion of slav­ery (over one hun­dred years ago) since this ad­just­ment was ef­fected grad­u­ally by the lib­er­a­tion of two per cent each year. Those slaves who sat­is­fac­to­rily passed men­tal, moral, and phys­i­cal tests were granted cit­i­zen­ship; many of these su­pe­rior slaves were war cap­tives or chil­dren of such cap­tives. Some fifty years ago they de­ported the last of their in­fe­rior slaves, and still more re­cently they are ad­dress­ing them­selves to the task of re­duc­ing the num­bers of their de­gen­er­ate and vi­cious classes.

72:5.3These peo­ple have re­cently de­vel­oped new tech­niques for the ad­just­ment of in­dus­trial mis­un­der­stand­ings and for the cor­rec­tion of eco­nomic abuses which are marked im­prove­ments over their older meth­ods of set­tling such prob­lems. Vi­o­lence has been out­lawed as a pro­ce­dure in ad­just­ing ei­ther per­sonal or in­dus­trial dif­fer­ences. Wages, prof­its, and other eco­nomic prob­lems are not rigidly reg­u­lated, but they are in gen­eral con­trolled by the in­dus­trial leg­is­la­tures, while all dis­putes aris­ing out of in­dus­try are passed upon by the in­dus­trial courts.

72:5.4The in­dus­trial courts are only thirty years old but are func­tion­ing very sat­is­fac­to­rily. The most re­cent de­vel­op­ment pro­vides that here­after the in­dus­trial courts shall rec­og­nize le­gal com­pen­sa­tion as falling in three di­vi­sions:

72:5.51. Le­gal rates of in­ter­est on in­vested cap­i­tal.

72:5.62. Rea­son­able salary for skill em­ployed in in­dus­trial op­er­a­tions.

72:5.73. Fair and eq­ui­table wages for la­bor.

72:5.8These shall first be met in ac­cor­dance with con­tract, or in the face of de­creased earn­ings they shall share pro­por­tion­ally in tran­sient re­duc­tion. And there­after all earn­ings in ex­cess of these fixed charges shall be re­garded as div­i­dends and shall be pro­rated to all three di­vi­sions: cap­i­tal, skill, and la­bor.

72:5.9Ev­ery ten years the re­gional ex­ec­u­tives ad­just and de­cree the law­ful hours of daily gain­ful toil. In­dus­try now op­er­ates on a five-day week, work­ing four and play­ing one. These peo­ple la­bor six hours each work­ing day and, like stu­dents, nine months in the year of ten. Va­ca­tion is usu­ally spent in travel, and new meth­ods of trans­porta­tion hav­ing been so re­cently de­vel­oped, the whole na­tion is travel bent. The cli­mate fa­vors travel about eight months in the year, and they are mak­ing the most of their op­por­tu­ni­ties.

72:5.10Two hun­dred years ago the profit mo­tive was wholly dom­i­nant in in­dus­try, but to­day it is be­ing rapidly dis­placed by other and higher driv­ing forces. Com­pe­ti­tion is keen on this con­ti­nent, but much of it has been trans­ferred from in­dus­try to play, skill, sci­en­tific achieve­ment, and in­tel­lec­tual at­tain­ment. It is most ac­tive in so­cial ser­vice and gov­ern­men­tal loy­alty. Among this peo­ple pub­lic ser­vice is rapidly be­com­ing the chief goal of am­bi­tion. The rich­est man on the con­ti­nent works six hours a day in the of­fice of his ma­chine shop and then has­tens over to the lo­cal branch of the school of states­man­ship, where he seeks to qual­ify for pub­lic ser­vice.

72:5.11La­bor is be­com­ing more hon­or­able on this con­ti­nent, and all able-bod­ied cit­i­zens over eigh­teen work ei­ther at home and on farms, at some rec­og­nized in­dus­try, on the pub­lic works where the tem­porar­ily un­em­ployed are ab­sorbed, or else in the corps of com­pul­sory la­bor­ers in the mines.

72:5.12These peo­ple are also be­gin­ning to fos­ter a new form of so­cial dis­gust—dis­gust for both idle­ness and un­earned wealth. Slowly but cer­tainly they are con­quer­ing their ma­chines. Once they, too, strug­gled for po­lit­i­cal lib­erty and sub­se­quently for eco­nomic free­dom. Now are they en­ter­ing upon the en­joy­ment of both while in ad­di­tion they are be­gin­ning to ap­pre­ci­ate their well-earned leisure, which can be de­voted to in­creased self-re­al­iza­tion.