OCR Text |
Show CONSIDER J!JS PATTER AN ECONOMIC PLAN OF SALVATION (Read this and send in your reactions to the plan.) Friends: While we all know that we are at war and a serious one, we are not all actively engaged in fighting. How would it be to launch into some discussion of problems of peace with which we will be confronted after the struggle ? The Government is asking all inventors to turn in all inventions that can be had for implements of war, and we all approve of that. Now suppose some of us, who are not fit for service in the Army, suggest some ideas without being asked for them. I think we have come to a time when our next reform should be the "abolishment of poverty," or could it be a crime to use our much boasted of Democracy for such reform ? We have proven time and again that we can produce more than we can use, hence here is the big question. Why have want in the midst of plenty ? Now for instance, when the war is over and our service men return, some of them, mind you, are already married, others w ill get married as soon as discharged; do we owe them anything as a Nation, or as a people, or are we through with them ? Then they could, and with a good deal of propriety, pro-priety, ask, "What did we fight for, anyway?" If we say to them, "We have fed you, clothed you, and furnished you with arms and ammunition as well as transportation all these years in the service, but unless you have some money ' or can earn some, we have nothing for you." We can say it all right, but can we make anyone believe it ? To make anyone believe that while we were engaged in destruction, we can furnish them with everything, but when we all &o back to production we can't furnish them anything unless they have money, well, they won't have any; war profits don't go to the soldier in the field-. field-. This is what we should say to them : "George, are you married?" , . "No, but I intend to get married tomorrow. "Alright," says the man in charge, "Come on, I will show you. You see that little white house down the lane? A 3-room house; its just been vacated by a defense worker who went back to his home town." ... George says, "But I have no money to buy furniture it." , , ' "Well, then go down to the furniture store and the manager there will show you what you can have." . George says, "Thank you ; now I am alright except 1 have no money to buy groceries, so what can I do "Oh, that's easy; go to the storehouse and you will be fixed up; it will all be charged against you for checking pur-Poses." pur-Poses." , . , George says, "How do I pay for this I , We say, "As soon as we need your services we will notify you; in the meantime get what you need from the storehouse; you are now a co-owner with all the rest ot us To someone else we may say, "You are a carpenter, are you not?" "Yes " "Weli, then we will give you an order on the building supply and they will give you all the help you need. Go ahead and build your house." . , , All this may seem crazy at first sight, but we have to lceep in mind that we have the commodities abunoM , but of opportunities to work there will be i a sea ity. so that s why we must furnish the necessities of life to all and m return they will work as soon as we can arrange for opportunities oppor-tunities to do so, and it won't be hard to find. I know of farmers that produce much of our food, working from ,14 to 16 hours a day, so for each of them there is room for one and then also room for a second man to do work on the farm that is now altogether neglected, f &s bmldmgs falling down, ditch cleaning, fence repairing etc Here some ' one suggests the farmer can't pay for all that help. 1 hat s correct. I am suggesting that he don't have to pay for his help. Here someone again says, 'It's crazy! At fit sight ,it would appear so. Here is how it works The , f mert over all he produces to the common Morehouse branches ot which may be located anywhere even on the taim. He may raise nothing but wheat, or nothing but corn i or sugar beets. With all the help he will now get he wm raise heavy crops; but he can't live on whea rbe tea lone, so he, like the rest of us, draws his X toK spective storehouses; all the necessities for the W a for all the help unless they have households of their own, in which case they draw for themselves. ' Here it may, with propriety, be asked, How -mi different commodities such as shoes clothing twls ana a kinds of utensils get to the , supply house , ao me turns in any money so they can buy ftf1 , the same buy them; the storehouse and the intones diti organization and the factory hands draw J S from the same storehouses whh would mean possimy gro eery stores, shoe stores, implement to"s we have now; the only difference we don't pay in i cash, an we (Continued on page fovij FoodlF()RTlhioiLiiM Plan Continued to do is render services which are assigned to us. We may as well understand from the start that there won't possibly be any difficulty with all the machines we now have, and will make in the future, that all men can have an opportunity to slave at manual labor as long hours as we have done in the past ; and why should we ? The machine has come as a blessing to mankind. Wouldn't it be nice to have the man spend a little more time with this family, helping the wife to raise the children, and play with them when they are small and help to teach them about this new Brotherhood of Man, of which we are now all members ? "No," says one, "we have the old adage, the divine decree that man must eat his bread in the sweat of his brow." That settles it. Just a minute; let us analyze this decree. In Genesis Gene-sis 3:17-19 we read: "When Adam broke God's commandment command-ment the Lord CURSED the ground for man's sake and said : "In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life, thorns and thistles shall it bring forth to thee. In the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread." We all accept and believe that Adam actually did this all of his life, but we don't do it so much now as we used to.. I remember well, only forty years ago, how I, along with others had to swing the scythe cutting grain from 8 o'clock, in the morning until 8 o'clock at night, and the women and boys following, binding the grain, and since we usually sat down on the ditchbanks to eat our meals, we did eat our bread in the sweat of our face, but we don't do it that way any more; we have machines doing it for us and no one objects. Who would object if the Lord in His kindness, since His knowledge has in the last hundred years or so begun to cover the earth, has chosen to permit a gradual lifting of the curse which compelled man to slave and eat his bread in the sweat of his brow? Of course, man still has to make machinery but with the help of the machines in all branches production, it will not take all man's toime to produce abundance of all commodities, so we will have more : home to improve ourselves, our homes and surrounding w while we are on the subject of less working hours, ( k to the curse through which man was compelled to . iard that he could not have time even to "cool" off bt ing his bread: What do we think about the curse a, to remain forever over man? I don't believe that, as the scriptures tell us that "all things shall be restored as they re in the beginning." Now, if the curse was to be lifted at some future time, : how would we expect it to take place? Do we look for neavenly messenger to come and take it away? Would it i; be more reasonable to think that now since the Lord has His knowledge in a degree cover the earth and man paring par-ing of that knowledge has been able to produce laboring labor-ing implements in all lines of production ; we may oppose even ridicule all this ; the fact remains the curse is being utted. Because a man doesn't slave every day from daylight to dark, sixteen hours, that is no sign that he should be idle he would not want to be; ti takes time to think, it takes time to write, it takes time to enjoy life which we should do since man is that he may have joy. It also takes time to think out new ways, to improve production so that our standards stand-ards of living may be raised, or do we think that we have reached the limit of living standards ? Possible some of us have but that does not help those who have not. I know of people who are now getting old who have slaved from twelve to sixteen hours a day all their lives, raised big families, who are high-class citizens, but they have nevei had a bathroom in their house. Who can say that they arc not entitled to one? That is insr nno ovamhlo Now if you have read thus far, you will say: "How can there be progress without the incentive of bettering one's own condition?" Then, is it a high incentive to strive for one's own aggrandizement which must be at the expense of someone less able? Then, it goes without saying, that it would be a higher incentive to strive for the betterment of all. Why wouldn't the esteem and good will, not to say love of, say one hundred and thirty million people? Why wouldn't that do for an incentive? I read in the Readers' Digest an article which says: "Human nature don't jibe with socialism." social-ism." That appears to be correct does it not? But, I say it is misleading. It should have said "Human nature, molded by education to fit the profit system, does not jibe with socialism." That is correct. At one time I was in a meeting, and the system cooperative stores,, mills and factories as they exist in Sweden was discussed, and one who professed to know something about cooperatives spoke and said : "That has been tried her but you can't make any money that way." That is the very thing it is supposed to prevent because if someone goes richer someone else must g-o poorer, as a result. Now, let it be understood that we don't harbor anv ill will against the rich, against the Jews, or any other capitalist capital-ist no, by all means, no! They are the ones who have made a success of the system that you and I accept and work under, should I say, approve? No, we put up with it, and try to make the best of it, but people that think cannot advocate it for the future. What would become or the rich? We have said that we have no hard feelings towards them, that is true, we do not; they are rich because our system made them such. But since under the new system their riches would have no value, they would have to be educated to become useful in the new society so as to render service hke the rest of us ; they have become rich because the power that goes with money' is the incentive in our education, the highest incentive known to the majority, and no higher will be known until it is taught, and we are afraid to teach it because it will upset our present law of the jungle. To the thinker it is plain that it is impossible to outlaw war by force since war is nothing but one of the functions of our present system, it must and will occur and reoccur as long as the system prevails. This is an endless subject, but I must close for now, and do so in the hope that some of the ideas expressed expres-sed may at least be worthy of criticism, if not of opposition. Your friend, C S. F. |