(discusses the land in the new world, and how we foster co-operative farming and co-operative homes.)
farming the land is a very ancient industry, and while its tools have been improved, its social forms have been the same for a long time. the worker on the land is conservative, and the russian bolsheviks, who tried to rush their peasants into communism, found that they had only succeeded in stopping the production of food. we make no such blunder in our new society. we have found a way to abolish speculation in land, and exploitation based on land-ownership, while leaving the farmer free to run his business in the old way if he wants to.
in our new society we take the full rental value of all land which is not occupied and used by the state. the farmer and the city dweller alike "own" their land, in the sense that they have the use of it for as long as they please, but they pay to the state the rental value of the land, minus the improvements. so they cannot speculate in the land or rent it out to others; they can only use it, and they only pay for what they actually use. they may put improvements on the land, with full assurance of having the use and benefit thereof, and they may sell the improvements, and the new owner enters into possession, with no obligation but to pay the rental value of the unimproved land to the state.
the farmer goes on raising his products, and if he wants to drive to town and deliver them to his customers, he may do so; but he finds it cheaper to market them through the great labor co-operatives and state markets. as there is no longer any private interest involved in these activities, no one has any interest in cheating him, and he gets the full value of the products, less the cost of marketing. if the farmer wishes to continue all his life in his old style individualistic method of working the land, he is free to do so. but here is what he sees going on within a few miles of his place:
the state has bought a square mile of land, and has taken down the fences and established an agricultural co-operative for purposes of experiment and demonstration. the farm is run under the direction of experts; the soils are treated with exactly the right fertilizers for each crop, the best paying crops are raised, the best seed is used, and the best machinery. the workers of this new agricultural co-operative receive the standard wage, and they live in homes specially built for them, with all the conveniences made possible by wholesale production. also, these co-operators live in a democratic community; they determine their own conditions of labor, being represented on the governing board, along with the experts appointed by the state.
the farmer watches this experiment, at first with suspicion; but he finds that his sons have less suspicion than he has, and his sons keep pointing out to him that their little farm is not making the standard wage or anything like it; and, moreover, the standard wage is constantly increasing, whereas, the price of farm-products is dropping. and here is the state, ready to direct new co-operative ventures, inviting a score of farmers in the community to combine and buy out the unwilling ones, and establish a new co-operative. sooner or later the old farmer gives way; or he dies, and his sons belong to the new world.
so ultimately we have our national agricultural system, in which all the requirements of our people are studied, and all the possibilities of our soil and climate, and the job of raising the exact quantities of food that we need, both for our own use and for export, is worked out as one problem. we know how much lumber we need, and we raise it on all our hillsides and mountain slopes, and so protect ourselves from floods and the denuding of our continent. we know where best to raise our wheat, and where best to raise our potatoes and our cabbages, and we do not do this by crude hand-labor, nor by the labor of women and children from daybreak till dark. we have special machines that plant each crop, and other machines that reap it or dig it out of the ground and prepare it for market.
a few days ago i read a discussion in the chamber of commerce of calcutta. some one called attention to the wastes involved in the current method of handling rubber. one consignment of rubber had been sold more than three hundred separate times, and the cost of these transactions amounted to three times the value of the rubber. this is only one illustration, and i might quote a thousand. if you doubt my figures as to the possibility of production in the new society, remind yourself that a large percentage of the things you use have been bought and sold many scores of times before you get them. consider the cabbage, for which you pay six or eight cents a pound in the grocery store, and for which the farmer gets, say, half a cent a pound.
in this new world the state has an enormous income, derived from its tax on land values. it no longer has to send around men once a year to ask you how many diamond rings your wife has, and to tax you on your honesty, if you have any. it no longer has to make its money by such lying devices as a tariff, therefore its moral being is no longer poisoned by a tariff-lobby. it taxes every citizen for the right to use that which nature created, and leaves free from taxation that which the citizens' own labor created; this kind of taxation is honest, and fair to all, because no one can evade it. the state uses the proceeds of this land tax in the public services, the libraries and research laboratories and information bureaus; in free insurance against fire and flood and tempest; and in a pension to every member of society above the working age of fifty-five, or below the working age of eighteen. of course, the state might leave it to every man to save up for his old age, but not all men are this wise, and the state cannot afford to let the unwise ones starve. it is more convenient for the state to figure that all men, or nearly all, are going to be old, and to hold back some of their money while they are young and strong, in the certainty that when they are old, they will appreciate this service. also the state takes care of the sick and incapacitated, and the mentally or physically defective. but we do not leave these latter loose in the world to reproduce their defects; we have in our new world some sense of responsibility to the future, and there is nothing to which we devote more effort than making certain that nothing unsound or abnormal is allowed entrance into life.
the problem of the care of children is a complicated one, and our new society is in process of solving it. we look back on the old world in which the having of children was heavily taxed, in the form of an obligation to care for these children until they were old enough to work. then the parents were allowed to exploit the labor of the children, so that among the very poor the raising of children was a business speculation, like the raising of slaves or poultry. but in our new world we consider the interest of the child, and of the society in which that child is to be a citizen. we decide that this society must have citizens, and that the raising of the future citizens is a work just exactly as necessary and useful as the raising of a crop of cabbages. therefore, we pay a pension to all mothers while they are raising and caring for children. at the same time we assert the right to see that this money is wisely spent, and that the child is really cared for. if it is neglected, we are quick to take it away from its parents, and put it in one of our twenty-four-hour-a-day schools.
we realize that the home is an ancient industry, even more ancient than agriculture, and we do not try to socialize it all at once. but just as we demonstrate to farmers that the individual farm does not pay, so we demonstrate to mothers the wastefulness of the single laundry, the single kitchen, the single nursery. we establish community laundries, community kitchens, community nurseries, and invite our women to help in these activities, and to learn there, under expert guidance, the advantages of domestic co-operation. we convince them by showing better results in the health and happiness of the children, and in the time and strength of the mothers. so, little by little, we widen the field of co-operative endeavor, and increase the total product of human labor and the total enjoyment of human life.
