“now, mr. forest”, i said when i again met my predecessor as professor of the history of the nineteenth century, “please tell me how much is the average yearly income of every inhabitant of the united states of america”?
“the average yearly income was figured up to be $204.”, mr. forest answered.
“two hundred and four dollars you say. is that all”? i queried with astonishment. “i expected from the statements of dr. leete and his style of living that it amounted to at least three times that sum”.
forest smiled. “how much was the average income of the people of the united states in your days”? he asked.
i was forced to admit that i had not the faintest idea.
“it was $165.”, said mr. forest, “or about twice the average amount earned by the people of germany or france”.
i was perplexed. i had never looked into the statistics of national economy. i had spent about twenty times $165. every year. i remembered having read in the papers of my time that the average yearly earnings of the working men, working women82 and children were over four hundred dollars, and i was inclined to estimate the average yearly income at about six hundred dollars. i stated this to mr. forest.
“you have left out of your calculation the women and children who were not earning anything, but who depended upon the income of their husbands, fathers and brothers”, mr. forest explained. “an income of two hundred and four dollars for every man, woman and child would, therefore, represent a large increase, if the figures were fairly given. but they are not correct. in order to make the income of the nation appear greater than it really is, the value of the various productions is quoted higher than in your days. consequently the purchasing power of every dollar on our credit-cards is less than that of the dollar of your time. i have carefully compared the prices of all the necessities and commodities as they are now and as they were in your time, and i have found an increase of about 95 percent. the real average yearly income of all the people of our country is about one hundred and twelve dollars, so there is not an increase of about 24 percent, but a decrease of about 33 percent”.
“how do you account for this remarkable statement”? i inquired.
“that is a question easier asked than answered”, replied mr. forest.
“i am very curious to hear your explanation”, i remarked. “dr. leete has given me so many plausible83 reasons for the “poverty resulting from our extraordinary industrial system”[26] that i was quite convinced of the greater wealth of your people. he mentioned the frequent wrong speculations of the nineteenth century, the insane competition, the periodical overproductions and consequent crises, the waste from idle capital and labor[27], and he especially dwelt upon the point that four or five enterprises of the nineteenth century failed where one succeeded”[28].
[26] page 42.
[27] page 229 & 230.
[28] page 230.
“yes, i know dr. leete’s arguments from occasional speeches he has made, and from articles he has written for the administration organs”, mr. forest responded. “and he has undoubtedly mentioned many other causes that crippled the production of your days. he has, or he may have, pointed to the expenditures for your army and navy, to your custom and revenue officials, to the tax-assessors and collectors you employed, to the larger number of judges, sheriffs and other officers you needed, to the greater amount of labor made necessary by domestic washing and cooking, to the large number of middlemen needed in handling goods before the articles made their way from the factory to the retail store, the latter corresponding to our storehouses. and dr. leete has or may have, mentioned the lawyers, bankers and their clerks who were nominally engaged in84 work that was really not done, and which has all been done away with to-day”.
“indeed”, i said, “dr. leete has enumerated most of these causes of the poverty of our days, and, since these evils have been abolished under your system of production, i think it would be simply a matter of course that the total yearly income of your people should have increased, and i wonder that the increase is not even greater than you have stated it to be”.
“i will not waste much time in investigating all these points and ascertaining how great was the loss thus inflicted on the production of the nineteenth century”, mr. forest continued. “but you seem to be inclined to overestimate their effects. unlucky speculations, for instance, caused sometimes heavy losses to the speculator, but in most cases they produced values that benefitted others and increased the wealth of the nation. the “insane competition” made goods cheaper, thereby stimulating both production and consumption and not harming, but on the contrary to a certain extent benefitting humanity. the statement that four or five enterprises failed where one succeeded is a “licentia poetica” of which dr. leete makes free use. you must know yourself that it is a gross exaggeration.
“the saving from the employment of steam-cooking we have already investigated. if there is any, it is small in the cities and smaller still in the country districts, and offers no compensation for the loss of comfort involved. furthermore we take into consideration85 that many of the men engaged as judges, lawyers, bankers, officers, middlemen, or clerks were over forty-five years or under twenty-one, so that you would have to deduct them from the force that you have to consider as a loss to the industrial army”.
“still, these misplacements of capital and labor, these losses in various ways were enormous”, i insisted, “and they account for the greater poverty of the people of the nineteenth century, compared with the inhabitants of the united states in the year 2000”.
“they would, undoubtedly”, mr. forest argued, “if there were no other reasons for a decrease of our production. but there are causes as you will readily see, when i point them out. the principle reason why both the quantity and the quality of our production are constantly abating, is the abolishment of competition. competition was the gigantic motor that caused nearly everybody during the first nineteen centuries of christian civilization to use all his mental and physical powers to “get ahead”. since the introduction of communism, since the good workmen are robbed of a part of the products of their labor for the benefit of the poor workers, and since everybody is sure of an equal share of all the necessities and commodities of life, no matter how much or how little he produces, the masses of the people are becoming more and more indifferent. they are not putting forth their best efforts to furnish much and good work. they are taking life easy. their mental and physical ability has decreased. the people86 of the united states, once famous for their energy, are degenerating. promotion might have acted as a spur, had not favoritism of the politicians monopolized all good positions for the tools of the administration”.
“the second reason for the decrease of production is the shortening of both the years and the hours of work. it is difficult to ascertain how many persons of different ages were employed in your time in productive labor. the census of the united states government taken before you went to sleep for one hundred and thirteen years, the census of 1880 is in many respects a very creditable work but it does not give the ages of the persons who then formed the industrial army. the report is very elaborate as to the number of persons of all ages, their nationality, and so forth. but in regard to the age of the workers it only gives three classes, one comprising all the persons under 15 years of age, another, all persons between 16 and 59, and the third, the number of employees of 60 years and over. of the people under 15 years of age 1,118,356 were employed, of the men and women over 60 years 933,644 were males and 70,873 females. the whole industrial army of your day numbered, out of an entire population of 50,155,783, not less than 17,392,099, only 2,647,157 being girls and women, including the servant girls”.
“i remember reading some of these figures”, i remarked.
“the census of 1880 thus shows that over 12 percent of the population of the united states belonging87 to the industrial army were under 15 and over 60 years of age”, mr. forest continued. “this is, of course, a very bad showing. girls and boys under 15 years of age should certainly belong to the schools, while people over 50 years ought to have permanent rest and a good living. but there can be no doubt that the working-force at the close of the last century was comparatively larger than ours. according to the census of 1880, there lived in the united states 15,527,215 persons of the age, that would make them to-day members of our industrial army. you employed, therefore, 2,173,184 more persons than your whole population between the ages of 21 to 45 numbered, and this calculation figures, that all the people of that age are really active. you must consider the fact, that many of our population who are of the age, when they ought to do work in the industrial army, are excused from service for various reasons, for instance: permanently sick people, the weak-minded, cripples, mothers of babies, etc. you must, therefore, recognize that your people furnished a much stronger working-force than does our generation.”
“i guess we did”, i admitted, convinced by the figures quoted by mr. forest.
drawing a piece of paper from his note book the gentleman continued: “here is a list of all the avocations you may call unproductive, taken from the census of 1880. i have given every point, which seems contrary to my views, the benefit of the doubt. i have embraced all the trades, professions and occupations88 dr. leete himself could fairly claim as nonproductive in this compilation, though a good many of the people engaged in them were, at least, saving time for members of the producing classes. many men and women of your time would not have been able to produce pictures and works of art, or to sing in operas and so forth, if it had been impossible for them to secure help in housekeeping. now, in your day, the year of our lord 1880, the people engaged in the occupations, trades and professions that dr. leete would call nonproductive, numbered 1,654,319 including all the servants. deducting these 1,654,319 from the 2,173,084 persons under the age of 15 and over 60, there still would be a surplus of 518,765 women and men of your time over the number of people, that would belong in our days to the industrial force”.
“your figures are correct, as far as you state them”, i said, desirous to encourage mr. forest to proceed with his argument.
“so you had, undoubtedly, in 1880 a surplus of productive persons above the age that would place them in our industrial army, which amounted to over one percent of the population, and to over three percent of persons at the age where they, to-day, would have to be members of the industrial army, even if we deduct all the persons from the working force whom a man like dr. leete would classify as nonproductive. now, deduct, furthermore, all our ladies occupied by their duties as mothers, before and after89 the birth of their children, deduct all the persons permanently sick, all the cripples and all the other people unable to do productive work, and you will have to admit that you had in your days a comparatively much larger force engaged in productive labor than we have. consider, that these people were stimulated by competition, that they desired to establish themselves on an independent basis, that they put forth their best efforts, in order to secure a life free from care during their old age, and that, therefore, the years of productive labor of each individual were much longer than they are at present, and that the stimulus to succeed was a potent fact in obtaining more and better work than we can secure nowadays.
“that i will admit”, i answered.
“and the working hours to-day are much shorter than they were at the end of the nineteenth century”, proceeded mr. forest with an expression on his face like that of a victor in a gladiatorial fight. “the natural tendency of an organization of society like ours is in that direction. and there are many reasons to encourage such a tendency. i have mentioned already that the farmers are complaining of the small number of theaters and concert halls and other amusements and advantages for country people, which city people enjoy to the full. the consequence of this is, that the country people flock to the cities. the nation would have suffered from a want of agricultural products if all the people crowding into the large cities had been accepted. but they were not welcomed.90 they were appointed to farm work. that settled their desire to live in the cities, and at the same time destroyed their ambition. the country people are satisfied that they cannot improve their lot, that they have to do farm work and that the city people are imposing upon them. the consequence is that they are working as little as possible, and the farming products have decreased to such an extent that we have to appoint city workmen of class b of the third grade to farm work, in order to protect the city people from starvation”.
“say your worst”, i remarked with a forced smile, for i saw dr. leete’s beautiful structure crumbling under the fire of mr. forest’s artillery of logic.
“you have seen”, mr. forest continued, “that the industrial army of 1880, engaged in productive labor, was, in proportion, much larger than ours, that the members were stimulated by competition to use their best mental and physical efforts to ‘get ahead’, and that they worked longer hours than we do. you must, furthermore, consider that we squander a greater amount of labor in overseeing and bookkeeping than you ever did. most of your retail business was transacted on the cash basis, and the small tradespeople did their own bookkeeping after closing their stores and shops. we, on the other hand, have an account for every man, woman and child in the country in the books of the national administration[29]. we have a bureau which keeps an account of the visits of all the91 physicians[30]. we have another bureau where you can secure help for housework as well as for other purposes, where accounts are kept, both of the helpers and of the people who demand help.[31] we have bureaus for each industry and they are excellent examples of the most thorough manner in which a government can waste human labor. the entire field of productive and constructive industry is, as you know, divided into ten great departments, each representing a group of allied industries, each particular industry being in turn represented by a subordinate bureau, which has a complete record of the plant and force under its control, as well as of the present product and the means of increasing it. the estimates of consumption of the distribution department (an organization independent of the great productive departments) after adoption by the administration, are sent as mandates to the ten great departments which allot them to the subordinate bureaus representing the particular industries, and these set the men to work. each bureau is responsible for the task given it, and the responsibility is enforced by departmental supervision and that of the administration; nor does the distribution department accept the products without its own inspection, while, even if in the hands of the consumer, an article turns out unfit, the system enables the fault to be traced back to the original workman”.[32]
[29] page 87.
[30] page 122.
[31] page 120.
[32] pages 182, 183.
92
“this amount of overseeing and bookkeeping, by which the government can trace back to the original workman a bad pin or a poorly rolled cigar, enables the administration to provide for its favorites many desirable places, but it certainly lessens the productive power of the industrial force, thus, again, decreasing the production. and at the same time the number of consumers is larger than in your days”.
“how do you account for this?” i inquired.
“has not dr. leete informed you that persons of average constitution usually live to be from eighty-five to ninety years old?”[33]
[33] page 197.
“indeed, he has”.
“this accounts for an increased number of consumers who all draw their full share of the products of labor in the form of a credit card”, mr. forest continued. “our people live longer than your contemporaries did. they take life easy, and while the spirit, the energy and the enterprise of our generation are gradually decreasing and degenerating, their bodies last longer”.
“ah! now at last you are admitting one gain”, i exclaimed.
“if it is a gain, i do”, rejoined mr. forest. “but even the favored members of our industrial army do not seem to consider it a very valuable acquisition. because the only way to secure a desirable position is to sacrifice their own independence and that of their relatives and friends, and even to employ base means93 of corruption, downright bribery of their superiors with a part of their own credit cards, many of the favorites of the administration are, in fact, enemies of the leaders”.
after a short pause mr. forest concluded his arguments. “i suppose i have successfully demonstrated that our organization of society, with its pretended basis of human equality has proved to be a failure, that there prevails to-day an inequality in many respects more oppressive than that of your time, that favoritism and corruption are about as potent under our communistic rule as they were at the end of the nineteenth century, that personal liberty is almost entirely destroyed, that the members of the industrial army, without having the right to vote at the election of their superiors, are at the mercy of their officers, that the members of the industrial force who are considered enemies of the government are leading a life that very properly may be styled as twenty-four years of hell on earth, that since the abolishment of competition the people are mentally degenerating for want of intellectual exercise, and that not even a greater wealth is a consolation for the loss of the greater liberty and independence the people enjoyed in your time. the shortening of both the years and the hours of productive labor, the abolition of competition and the increase in the number of consumers have reduced the average daily income of the inhabitants of the united states to such an extent that the amount inscribed upon our credit card is so small, that it affords94 only a very frugal living to the people of the twentieth century. and there is no doubt in my mind that a continuation of the present system for a few hundred years more would so degrade and degenerate the people that a relapse into barbarism would ensue”.
