On Jul 21, 5:29 pm, tg earthlink.net> wrote:

What is military service or any kind of civil service, from working on
the police force to working at the post office and every nationalized
function in between. These people, like teachers, get paid less than
they could make in the free market work force, but they sacrifice and
feel happy about what they do. I like the message in "Looking
Backwards" written in the 1870s where it portrays a future where all
occupations are like civil service and all competition is removed
etc... does that sound French enough for you Adolph?

"But you have not yet told me how you have settled the labor problem.
It is the problem of capital which we have been discussing," I said.
"After the nation had assumed conduct of the mills, machinery,
railroads, farms, mines, and capital in general of the country, the
labor question still remained. In assuming the responsibilities of
capital the nation had assumed the difficulties of the capitalist's
position."

"The moment the nation assumed the responsibilities of capital those
difficulties vanished," replied Dr. Leete. "The national organization
of labor under one direction was the complete solution of what was, in
your day and under your system, justly regarded as the insoluble labor
problem. When the nation became the sole employer, all the citizens,
by virtue of their citizenship, became employees, to be distributed
according to the needs of industry."

"That is," I suggested, "you have simply applied the principle of
universal military service, as it was understood in our day, to the
labor question."

"Yes," said Dr. Leete, "that was something which followed as a matter
of course as soon as the nation had become the sole capitalist. The
people were already accustomed to the idea that the obligation of
every citizen, not physically disabled, to contribute his military
services to the defense of the nation was equal and absolute. That it
was equally the duty of every citizen to contribute his quota of
industrial or intellectual services to the maintenance of the nation
was equally evident, though it was not until the nation became the
employer of labor that citizens were able to render this sort of
service with any pretense either of universality or equity. No
organization of labor was possible when the employing power was
divided among hundredsor thousands of individuals and corporations,
between which concert of any kind was neither desired, nor indeed
feasible. It constantly happened then that vast numbers who desired to
labor could find no opportunity, and on the other hand, those who
desired to evade a part or all of their debt could easily do so."

"Service, now, I suppose, is compulsory upon all," I suggested.

"It is rather a matter of course than of compulsion," replied Dr.
Leete. "It is regarded as so absolutely natural and reasonable that
the idea of its being compulsory has ceased to be thought of. He would
be thought to be an incredibly contemptible person who should need
compulsion in such a case. Nevertheless, to speak of service being
compulsory would be a weak way to state its absolute inevitableness.
Our entire social order is so wholly based upon and deduced from it
that if it were conceivable that a man could escape it, he would be
left with no possible way to provide for his existence. He would have
excluded himself from the world, cut himself off from his kind, in a
word, committed suicide."

"Is the term of service in this industrial army for life?"

"Oh, no; it both begins later and ends earlier than the average
working period in your day. Your workshops were filled with children
and old men, but we hold the period of youth sacred to education, and
the period of maturity, when the physical forces begin to flag,
equally sacred to ease and agreeable relaxation. The period of
industrial service is twenty-four years, beginning at the close of the
course of education at twenty-one and terminating at forty-five. After
forty-five, while discharged from labor, the citizen still remains
liable to special calls, in case of emergencies causing a sudden great
increase in the demand for labor, till he reaches the age of fifty-
five, but such calls are rarely, in fact almost never, made. The
fifteenth day of October of every year is what we call Muster Day,
because those who have reached the age of twenty-one are then mustered
into the industrial service, and at the same time those who, after
twenty-four years' service, have reached the age of forty-five, are
honorably mustered out. It is the great day of the year with us,
whence we reckon all other events, our Olympiad, save that it is
annual."

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/bellamy/ch06.html

"It is after you have mustered your industrial army into service," I
said, "that I should expect the chief difficulty to arise, for there
its analogy with a military army must cease. Soldiers have all the
same thing, and a very simple thing, to do, namely, to practice the
manual of arms, to march and stand guard. But the industrial army must
learn and follow two or three hundred diverse trades and avocations.
What administrative talent can be equal to determining wisely what
trade or business every individual in a great nation shall pursue?"

"The administration has nothing to do with determining that point."

"Who does determine it, then?" I asked.

"Every man for himself in accordance with his natural aptitude, the
utmost pains being taken to enable him to find out what his natural
aptitude really is. The principle on which our industrial army is
organized is that a man's natural endowments, mental and physical,
determine what he can work at most profitably to the nation and most
satisfactorily to himself. While the obligation of service in some
form is not to be evaded, voluntary election, subject only to
necessary regulation, is depended on to determine the particular sort
of service every man is to render. As an individual's satisfaction
during his term of service depends on his having an occupation to his
taste, parents and teachers watch from early years for indications of
special aptitudes in children. A thorough study of the National
industrial system, with the history and rudiments of all the great
trades, is an essential part of our educational system. While manual
training is not allowed to encroach on the general intellectual
culture to which our schools are devoted, it is carried far enough to
give our youth, in addition to their theoretical knowledge of the
national industries, mechanical and agricultural, a certain
familiarity with their tools and methods. Our schools are constantly
visiting our workshops, and often are taken on long excursions to
inspect particular industrial enterprises. In your day a man was not
ashamed to be grossly ignorant of all trades except his own, but such
ignorance would not be consistent with our idea of placing every one
in a position to select intelligently the occupation for which he has
most taste. Usually long before he is mustered into service a young
man has found out the pursuit he wants to follow, has acquired a great
deal of knowledge about it, and is waiting impatiently the time when
he can enlist in its ranks."

"Surely," I said, "it can hardly be that the number of volunteers for
any trade is exactly the number needed in that trade. It must be
generally either under or over the demand."

"The supply of volunteers is always expected to fully equal the
demand," replied Dr. Leete. "It is the business of the administration
to see that this is the case....

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/bellamy/ch07.html

"You were surprised," he said, "at my saying that we got along without
money or trade, but a moment's reflection will show that trade existed
and money was needed in your day simply because the business of
production was left in private hands, and that, consequently, they are
superfluous now."

"I do not at once see how that follows," I replied.

"It is very simple," said Dr. Leete. "When innumerable different and
independent persons produced the various things needful to life and
comfort, endless exchanges between individuals were requisite in order
that they might supply themselves with what they desired. These
exchanges constituted trade, and money was essential as their medium.
But as soon as the nation became the sole producer of all sorts of
commodities, there was no need of exchanges between individuals that
they might get what they required. Everything was procurable from one
source, and nothing could be procured anywhere else. A system of
direct distribution from the national storehouses took the place of
trade, and for this money was unnecessary."

"How is this distribution managed?" I asked.

"On the simplest possible plan," replied Dr. Leete. "A credit
corresponding to his share of the annual product of the nation is
given to every citizen on the public books at the beginning of each
year, and a credit card issued him with which he procures at the
public storehouses, found in every community, whatever he desires
whenever he desires it. This arrangement, you will see, totally
obviates the necessity for business transactions of any sort between
individuals and consumers. Perhaps you would like to see what our
credit cards are like.

"You observe," he pursued as I was curiously examining the piece of
pasteboard he gave me, "that this card is issued for a certain number
of dollars. We have kept the old word, but not the substance. The
term, as we use it, answers to no real thing, but merely serves as an
algebraical symbol for comparing the values of products with one
another. For this purpose they are all priced in dollars and cents,
just as in your day. The value of what I procure on this card is
checked off by the clerk, who pricks out of these tiers of squares the
price of what I order."

"If you wanted to buy something of your neighbor, could you transfer
part of your credit to him as consideration?" I inquired.

"In the first place," replied Dr. Leete, "our neighbors have nothing
to sell us, but in any event our credit would not be transferable,
being strictly personal. Before the nation could even think of
honoring any such transfer as you speak of, it would be bound to
inquire into all the circumstances of the transaction, so as to be
able to guarantee its absolute equity. It would have been reason
enough, had there been no other, for

abolishing money, that its possession was no indication of rightful
title to it. In the hands of the man who had stolen it or murdered for
it, it was as good as in those which had earned it by industry. People
nowadays interchange gifts and favors out of friendship, but buying
and selling is considered absolutely inconsistent with the mutual
benevolence and disinterestedness which should prevail between
citizens and the sense of community of interest which supports our
social system. According to our ideas, buying and selling is
essentially anti-social in all its tendencies. It is an education in
self-seeking at the expense of others, and no society whose citizens
are trained in such a school can possibly rise above a very low grade
of civilization."

"What if you have to spend more than your card in any one year?" I
asked.

"The provision is so ample that we are more likely not to spend it
all," replied Dr. Leete. "But if extraordinary expenses should exhaust
it, we can obtain a limited advance on the next year's credit, though
this practice is not encouraged, and a heavy discount is charged to
check it. Of course if a man showed himself a reckless spendthrift he
would receive his allowance monthly or weekly instead of yearly, or if
necessary not be

permitted to handle it all."

"If you don't spend your allowance, I suppose it accumulates?"

"That is also permitted to a certain extent when a special outlay is
anticipated. But unless notice to the contrary is given, it is
presumed that the citizen who does not fully expend his credit did not
have occasion to do so, and the balance is turned into the general
surplus."

"Such a system does not encourage saving habits on the part of
citizens," I said.

"It is not intended to," was the reply. "The nation is rich, and does
not wish the people to deprive themselves of any good thing. In your
day, men were bound to lay up goods and money against coming failure
of the means of support and for their children. This necessity made
parsimony a virtue. But now it

would have no such laudable object, and, having lost its utility, it
has ceased to be regarded as a virtue. No man any more has any care
for the morrow, either for himself or his children, for the nation
guarantees the nurture, education, and comfortable maintenance of
every citizen from the cradle to the grave."

"That is a sweeping guarantee!" I said. "What certainty can there be
that the value of a man's labor will recompense the nation for its
outlay on him? On the whole, society may be able to support all its
members, but some must earn less than enough for their support, and
others more; and that brings us back once more to the wages question,
on which you have hitherto said nothing. It was at just this point, if
you remember, that our talk ended last evening; and I say again, as I
did then, that here I should suppose a national industrial system like
yours would find its main difficulty. How, I ask once more, can you
adjust satisfactorily the comparative wages or remuneration of the
multitude of avocations, so unlike and so incommensurable, which are
necessary for the service of society? In our day the market rate
determined the price of labor of all sorts, as well as of goods. The
employer paid as little as he could, and the worker got as much. It
was not a pretty system ethically, I admit; but it did, at least,
furnish us a rough and ready formula for settling a question which
must be settled ten thousand times a day if the world was ever going
to get forward. There seemed to us no other practicable way of doing
it."

"Yes," replied Dr. Leete, "it was the only practicable way under a
system which made the interests of every individual antagonistic to
those of every other; but it would have been a pity if humanity could
never have devised a better plan, for yours was simply the application
to the mutual relations of men of the devil's maxim, `Your necessity
is my opportunity.' The reward of any service depended not upon its
difficulty, danger, or hardship, for throughout the world it seems
that the most perilous, severe, and repulsive labor was done by the
worst paid classes; but solely upon the strait of those who needed the
service."

"All that is conceded," I said. "But, with all its defects, the plan
of settling prices by the market rate was a practical plan; and I
cannot conceive what satisfactory substitute you can have devised for
it. The government being the only possible employer, there is of
course no labor market or market rate. Wages of all sorts must be
arbitrarily fixed by the government. I cannot imagine a more complex
and delicate function than that must be, or one, however performed,
more certain to breed universal dissatisfaction."

"I beg your pardon," replied Dr. Leete, "but I think you exaggerate
the difficulty. Suppose a board of fairly sensible men were charged
with settling the wages for all sorts of trades under a system which,
like ours, guaranteed employment to all, while permitting the choice
of avocations. Don't you see that, however unsatisfactory the first
adjustment might be, the mistakes would soon correct themselves? The
favored trades would have too many volunteers, and those discriminated
against would lack them till the errors were set right. But this is
aside from the purpose, for, though this plan would, I fancy, be
practicable

enough, it is no part of our system."

"How, then, do you regulate wages?" I once more asked.

Dr. Leete did not reply till after several moments of meditative
silence. "I know, of course," he finally said, "enough of the old
order of things to understand just what you mean by that question; and
yet the present order is so utterly different at this point that I am
a little at loss how to answer you best. You ask me how we regulate
wages; I can only reply that there is no idea in the modern social
economy which at all corresponds with what was meant by wages in your
day."

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/bellamy/ch09.html