Scott Nearing

“ One of the chief weapons of a leisure class is some mark that will easily distinguish its members from the workers. This mark, in modern society, is conspicuous consumption. By the quality and style of its wearing apparel, by the scale of its housing, by the multitude of its possessions, its luxuries and its enjoyments, the leisure class sets itself apart from the remainder of the community, advertising to the world, in the most unmistakable manner, its capacity to spend more than the members of the working class can earn. ”

“ The war showed the impotence of the present order to assure even a reasonable measure of human happiness and well-being. Of what profit the material benefits of a civilization that takes a toll of thirty-five millions of lives and that wrecks the economic machinery of a continent in four short years? Yet the failure of the revolutionary forces to avail themselves of the opportunity presented by the war proved the unreadiness of the masses to throw off the yoke of the old régime and to lay the foundations of a new order. ”

“ Until some effort was made to study society in a scientific spirit, there was no reason for supposing that men might be able to cope with social ills or to prevent social disaster. Even to-day, while there is no longer any question as to the possibility of classifying social facts, and while sociology is regarded as a science of great promise, the feeling lingers that social events are fore-ordained. Many people feel to-day about social disaster as the men of the middle ages felt about the plague—that it is outside the field of man's preventive power. ”

“ Thus society would eliminate the inequalities that are now created by the concentration of ownership and power in a few hands, and would establish a relative equality among those who produced. The great fear of the modern worker—the fear of unemployment or job-loss—would also be eliminated, since the producers, in a society of which they had control, would be able to hold their own jobs.
These various means would serve to dignify labor and production, and to establish a society in which prestige and honor would attach to creation rather than to ownership. ”

“ While the industrial revolution broke the spell of isolation that lay so heavily upon the remote parts of the world, the driving power of the economic forces that followed in its wake, has battered down the geographic barriers that separate men, almost to the vanishing point. Peoples work together, exchange the products of their labor, travel, accumulate and spread news, broadcast ideas and organize and co-ordinate business ventures and labor unions, without any great consideration for geography, and despite the political boundary lines that separate nations. ”

“ The results of such wisely planned experiments in the social field may be just as dramatic as the results of similarly planned experiments in the field of natural science.
Never in the history of social change has there been an intelligent direction of social processes. Many men in many ages have had ideals and aspirations, coupled, in some cases, with a limited knowledge of social practice, but social changes have come upon mankind for the most part, as a meteor comes upon the earth's atmosphere—unexpected and unheralded, startling those who have seen it by the suddenness of its appearance. ”

“ Society is structural, and as a structure it must function; the economic world is built up of working units that are compelled, by the nature of modern industry to work co-operatively, but the very nature of the political structure of modern society hampers this co-operative work in many essential directions; federation seems to be the logical answer to the enigma of effective social organization, and it only remains to organize a workable series of economic units and to build them into a world structure—a world structure in terms of production rather than of politics. ”

“ The currents of economic life, like most other phases of human activity, have swept beyond the local forests, the grass lands, the tilled fields, the oven and the carpenter's bench, and gaining momentum in their ever-widening course, they have circled the world. ”

“ What need is there to speak to this generation of the devastation caused by these wars? of the killing, the maiming, the famine, the disease, the disorganization and chaos?
The western world has not yet recovered from the latest international war, while the economic war and the class war are being fought on the six continents and the seven seas. The cost of wars in blood, treasure, happiness and usefulness is an intolerable one. The chains with which Mars loads the human race weigh men down to the earth. ”

“ The economic unit is one of the tools with which society does its work, and is the means relied upon for the production of livelihood. Like the axe of the woodsman or the lathe of the mechanic, the social tools and machinery must be kept in effective working order if society is to receive a return for its outlay of labor and materials. ”

“ Only dimly do men realize these limitations. The more they learn, the more clearly they understand the nature of the bonds that hold them, and the better are they prepared to break down the most hampering barriers, and to follow where aspiration and hope beckon. Yet, even among the masses of the people, who have had little time to learn, and less in which to reflect, there is a persistent longing to be free. The plea for liberty always awakens a response in them because, through their own lives they come into such intimate contact with the hateful burdens that oppression lays upon its victims. ”

“ When has the problem of credit become a world problem? To such questions there is but one answer: when these matters are of vital concern to more than one division or to more than one of the major industrial groups—in other words, when they pass beyond the control of one group, they are matters for world jurisdiction.
No plan can be drafted that will anticipate the difficulties of world economic organization. The utmost that men can hope to do is to draft a set of working rules that will enable them to act wisely when confronted by difficulties.
The world is still in a state of chaos. ”

“ The machinery for public education—the schools, the press, the lecture-platform, has grown within a century to a point that renders possible the speedy distribution of knowledge to the most remote parts of the world. One of the greatest single steps in the reconstruction of the economic life of the world is the use of this machinery to distribute such information as is essential to a clear understanding of the economic problem and the normal course of its development. ”

“ Since the middle of the nineteenth century the business men of every great industrial nation have been compelled to go abroad for raw materials, for markets and for investment opportunities. In order to obtain these economic advantages, the citizens of the civilized nations have not hesitated to plunder the natives, and if they resisted, to murder them—as Britain has done in India, as Belgium has done in the Congo, as Japan has done in Korea, as the United States has done in the Philippines and Hayti. ”

“ The power now exercised by the bankers will, in a producers' society, be under the control of public servants whose business it will be to link up the various lines of activity within the economic machine.
At one stage in the development of the world's economic life it was necessary to take out of the hands of private individuals the right to issue money, and to make of money issue a public function. To-day no one questions the desirability of having money issued by public authority, and the right to issue money is recognized as one of the important attributes of sovereignty. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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 foundations are sounder because they are broader.
In addition to these functional advantages of self-government, it possesses an immense asset in the sense of proprietorship that leads the citizens of a self-governing community to stand by the community organization because they feel that they have built it and that it is their own. A self-governing community therefore carries within itself the means of its own perpetuation in the enthusiasm and devotion of its population to an institution in which they feel a sense of workmanship and of the pride of possession. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Necessarily, the vassal occupies a position of servility. When he asks for an opportunity to work, he is asking for an opportunity to live. When he takes a job he is binding his life and his conduct under terms prescribed by the job-owner. If he has a family, or owns a home, or is in any way tied to one spot, he is doubly bound.
The establishment of a producers' society would make each man his own master in somewhat the same sense that the farmer or the artisan who owns his land or tools is the arbiter of his own economic destiny. That is, he would own his job and share in its control. ”

“ Men have met the immediate economic problem by devising methods for producing food, clothes and roof-trees, but they have been overwhelmed by the social implications of these productive forces. Before the problem of sharing the proceeds of their labor, they have stopped, and the whole economic progress of the race now stands like an engine stalled, awaiting some solution of the problems of distribution. ”