Freeland

T >> Theodor Hertzka >> Freeland

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'From the founding of our commonwealth we have insisted upon the ability to
read and write sufficiently to be able to participate in all our rights.
Freedom and equality of rights assume the possession of a certain degree of
knowledge, from which we _cannot_ exempt anyone. It is true we might resort
to the expedient of exercising guardianship over the untaught; but to do
this would be to open up to the authorities a sphere of influence which we
hold to be incompatible with real freedom, and we therefore treat
illiterate immigrants as strangers, or, if you will, as guests whom it is
everyone's duty to assist as much as possible, and who, so far as they show
themselves capable of doing anything, suffer no material disadvantage in
comparison with the natives, but are not allowed to exercise any political
right.'

'But how,' asked my father--'how do you arrive at a knowledge of the mental
condition of your ignorant fellow-countrymen? Have you a special board for
this purpose; and do no unpleasantnesses spring from such an inquisition?'

'We make no inquiry, and no board troubles itself about the knowledge of
the people. At first, in order not to be overwhelmed by foreign ignorance,
we took the precaution of excluding illiterates from gratuitous admission
into Freeland, but for the last nineteen years we have ceased to exclude
any. Everyone, without any exception, has since been free to settle
gratuitously in any part whatever of Freeland. No one asks him what he
knows; he is free to make full use of all our institutions, to exercise all
our rights; only he must do so in the same way as we, and that is
impossible to the illiterate. Whithersoever he goes--to the central bank,
to any of the associations, to the polling-places--he must read and write,
and as a matter of course write with understanding--must be familiar with
printed and written words; in short, he must possess a certain degree of
culture, from the possession of which we cannot exempt him even if we
would.'

'Then,' said my father, 'your boasted equality of rights exists only for
educated persons?'

'Of course,' explained Mrs. Ney. 'Or do you really believe that perfectly
uneducated persons possess the power of disciplining themselves? Certainly,
real freedom and equality of rights presuppose some degree of culture. The
freedom and equality of rights of poverty and barbarism can, it is true,
exist among ignorant barbarians, but wealth and leisure are the products of
higher art and culture, and can be possessed only by truly civilised men.
He who would make men free and rich must first give them knowledge--this
lies in the nature of things; and it is not our fault, but yours, that so
many of your compatriots must be educated into freedom.'

'There you are right,' sighed my father. 'And what has been your experience
of these illiterate immigrants?'

'The experience that this exclusion from perfect equality of rights, being
connected with no material disadvantage, operates as an absolutely
irresistible stimulus to acquire as quickly as possible what was left
unacquired in the old home. For the use of such immigrants we have
established special schools for adults; neighbours and friends interest
themselves in them, and the people learn with touching eagerness. They by
no means content themselves with acquiring merely that amount of knowledge
which is requisite to the exercise of all the Freeland rights, but they
honestly endeavour to gain all the knowledge possible; and the cases are
very few in which the study of a few years has not converted such
immigrants into thoroughly cultured men.'

'And as to the immigrants who reach us in a really invalided condition,'
interposed David, 'we fulfil towards them the duty of maintenance as if
they had grown old and weak in Freeland workshops. We have not detected any
considerable increase of our annual expenditure in consequence. It is a
characteristic fact, moreover, that those who reach us as invalids make for
the most part only a partial use of their right to claim a
maintenance-allowance. These pitiable sufferers as a rule take some time to
accustom themselves to the Freeland standard of higher enjoyments, and at
first they have no use for the wealth which streams in upon them.'

'I must ask you to remove yet one other difficulty, and one that seems to
me to be the greatest of all. What of the criminals, against whose
immigration you are not protected? To me it seems most strange that, with
the millions of your Freeland population, you can dispense with both police
and penal code; and I am utterly at a loss to understand how you dispose of
those vagabonds and criminals who are sure to be drawn hither, like wasps
by honey, by your enticing lenity, which will not punish but merely reform
the bad? It is true you have told us that the justices of the peace
appointed to decide civil disputes have authority in the first instance in
criminal cases also, and that an appeal is allowed from these to a higher
judicial court; but you added that these judges had all of them as good as
nothing to do, and that only very rare cases occurred in which the
reformatory treatment adopted in this country had to be resorted to. Have
your institutions such a strong ameliorating power over hardened
criminals?'

'Certainly,' answered Mrs. Ney. 'And if you carefully consider what is the
essential and ultimate source of all crime, you will find this is quite
intelligible. Do not forget that justice and law in the exploiting form of
society make demands on the individual which are directly opposed to human
nature. The hungry shivering man is expected to pass by the abundance of
others without appropriating that which he needs to satisfy the imperative
demands of nature--nay, he must not indulge in envy and ill-will towards
those who have in plenty what he so cruelly lacks! He is to love his
fellow-man, though just where the conflict of interests is the most bitter,
because it is waged around the very essentials of existence--just there,
where his fellow-man is his rival, his tyrant, his slave, in every case his
enemy, from whose injury he derives gain and from whose gain injury accrues
to him! That for thousands of years all this has been inevitable cannot be
denied; but it would be foolish to overlook the fact that the same cruel
sequence which made the exploitation of man by man--that is, injustice--the
necessary antecedent to the progress of civilisation, also called into
existence crime--that is, the rebellion of the individual against the order
which is both horrible in itself and yet indispensable to the welfare of
the community. The exploiting system of society requires the individual to
do what harms him, because the welfare of the community demands it, and
demands it not as a specially commendable and pre-eminently meritorious
act, which can be expected of only a few noble natures in whom public
spirit has suppressed every trace of egoism, but as something which
everyone is to do as a matter of course, the doing of which is not called a
virtue, though the not doing of it is called a crime. The hero who
sacrifices his life to his fatherland, to mankind, subordinates his own to
a higher interest, and never will the human race be able to dispense with
such sacrifices, but will always demand of its noblest that love of wife
shall conquer love of self; nay, it may be stated as a logical consequence
of progressive civilisation that this demand shall grow more and more
imperative and meet with an ever readier response. But the name of this
response is 'heroism,' its lack involves no crime; it cannot be enforced,
but it is a voluntary tribute of love paid by noble natures. But in the
economic domain a similar, nay, more difficult, heroism is required
especially from the lowest and the most wretched, and must be required of
such as long as society is based upon a foundation of exploitage, and
'criminal' must be the name of all those who show themselves to be less
great than a Leonidas, or a Curtius, or a Winkelried on the battle-field,
or than those generally nameless heroes of human love who have fearlessly
sacrificed themselves in the conflict with the inimical powers of nature at
the bidding of the holy voice within them--the voice of human love.

'But we in Freeland ask from no one such heroism as our right. In economic
matters we require of the individual nothing that is antagonistic to his
own interests; it follows as a matter of course that he never rebels
against our laws. That which under the old order could be asserted only by
self-complacent thoughtlessness, is a truth among us--namely, that economic
morality is nothing but rational egoism. You will therefore find it
intelligible that _reasonable_ men cannot break our laws.

'But you ask, further, how does it happen that those unfortunates who in
other countries are driven into crime, not by want, but by their evil
disposition--and it cannot be denied that there are such--do not give us
any trouble? Here also the question suggests its own answer. This hatred
towards society and its members is not natural, is not innate in even the
worst of men, but is the product of the injustice in the midst of which
these habitual criminals live. The love of wife and of one's fellows is
ineradicably implanted in every social animal--and man is such an animal;
but its expression can be suppressed by artificially excited hatred and
envy. It is true that long-continued exercise of evil instincts will
gradually make them so powerfully predominant as to make it appear that the
social nature of man has been transformed into that of the beast of prey,
no longer linked to society by any residuum of love or attachment. But it
only _seems_ so. The most hardened criminal cannot long resist the
influence of genuine human affection; hatred and defiance hold out only so
long as the unfortunate sees himself deprived of the possibility of
obtaining recognition in the community of the happy, as one possessed of
equal rights with the others. If this hope is held out to him all defiance
ceases.

'I question if there has ever been a large percentage of men of criminal
antecedents among the immigrants into Freeland. As my son has already said,
the proportion in which different categories of men have come hither
depends not upon the greater or less degree of misery, but upon the
intelligence of the men. Since the criminal classes in the five parts of
the world know relatively less of Freeland than do the honest and
intelligent workers, I am convinced that relatively fewer of them have come
hither. At any rate, we have seen very few signs of their presence here. We
have a few dozen incorrigibly vicious persons in the country, but these are
without exception incurable idiots. How these reached us I do not know; but
of course, as soon as their mental unsoundness was ascertained, they were
placed in asylums.'

This point being cleared up, my father asked for a final explanation. He
said he could perfectly understand that the Freeland institutions, being
nothing else but a logical carrying out of the principle of economic
justice, were thoroughly capable of meeting every fair and reasonable
demand. He nevertheless expressed his astonishment at the perfect
satisfaction which the people universally exhibited with themselves and
their condition. Did not _unreasonable_ party agitations create
difficulties in Freeland? Particularly he wished to know if Communism and
Nihilism, which were ever raising their heads threateningly in Europe, gave
no trouble here. 'In the eyes of a genuine Communist,' he cried, 'you are
here nothing but arrant aristocrats! There is not a trace of absolute
equality among you! What value can your boasted equality of _rights_ have
in the eyes of people who act upon the principle that every mouthful more
of bread enjoyed by one than is enjoyed by another is theft; and who
therefore, to prevent one man from possessing more than another, abolish
all property whatever? And yet there are no police, no soldiers, to keep
these Bedlamites in order! Give us the recipe according to which the
nihilistic and communistic fanaticism can be rendered so harmless.'

'Nothing easier,' answered Mrs. Ney. 'Supply everyone to satiety, and no
one will covet what others have. Absolute equality is an hallucination of
the hunger-fever, nothing more. Men are _not_ equal, either in their
faculties or in their requirements. Your appetite is stronger than mine;
perhaps you are fond of gay clothing, I would not give a farthing for it;
perhaps I am dainty, while you prefer a plain diet; and so on without end.
What sense would there be in attempting to assimilate our several needs? I
do not care to inquire whether it is possible, whether the violence
necessary to the attempt would not destroy both freedom and progress; the
idea itself is so foolish that it would be absolutely inconceivable how
sane men could entertain it, had it not been a fact that one of us is able
to satisfy neither his strong nor his weak appetite, his preference neither
for fine nor for quiet clothing, neither for dainties nor for plain food,
but must endure brutal torturing misery. When to that is added the mistake
that my superfluity is the cause of your deficiency, it becomes
intelligible why you and those who sympathise with you in your sufferings
should call for division of property--absolutely equal division. In a word,
Communism has no other source than the perception of the boundless misery
of a large majority of men, together with the erroneous opinion that this
misery can be alleviated only by the aid of the existing wealth of
individuals. This view is inconceivably foolish, for it is necessary only
to open one's eyes to see what a pitiful use is made of the power which man
already possesses to create wealth. But this foolish notion was not hatched
by the Communists; your orthodox economists gave currency to the doctrine
that increased productiveness of labour cannot increase the already
existing value--it was they, and not the Communists, who blinded mankind to
the true connexion between economic phenomena. Communists are in reality
merely credulous adherents of the so-called "fundamental truths" of
orthodox economy; and the only distinction between them and the ruling
party among you is that the Communists are hungry while the ruling classes
are full-fed. When it is perceived that nothing but perfect equality of
rights is needed _in order to create more than enough for all_, Communism
disappears of itself like an evil tormenting dream. You may require--even
if you do not carry it out--that all men shall be put upon the same bread
rations, so long as you believe that the commonwealth upon which we are all
compelled to depend will furnish nothing more than mere bread, for we all
wish to eat our fill. To require that the same sorts and quantity of roast
meats, pastry, and confections shall be forced upon everyone, when it is
found that there is enough of these good things for all, would be simply
puerile. Hence there is and can be no Communist among us.

'For the same reason Nihilism is impossible among us, for that also is
nothing more than an hallucination due to the despair of hunger, and can
flourish only on the soil of the orthodox view of the world. Whilst
Communism is the practical application which hunger makes of the thesis
that human labour does not suffice to create a superfluity for all,
Nihilism is the inference drawn by despair from the doctrine that culture
and civilisation are incompatible with equality of rights. It is orthodoxy
which has given currency to this doctrine; certainly, as the spokesman of
the well-to-do, it holds no other inference to be conceivable than that the
eternally disinherited masses must submit to their fate in the interests of
civilisation. But the party of the hungry turn in foaming rage against this
civilisation, the very defenders of which assert that it can never help the
enormous majority of men, and therefore can do nothing more for them than
make them increasingly conscious of their misery. We have demonstrated that
civilisation is not merely compatible with, but is necessarily implied in,
the economic equality of rights. Hence Nihilism also must be unknown among
us.'

'Then you think,' I said, 'that equality of actual income has nothing to do
with equality _of rights_? For my part, I must admit that that useless
heaping up of superfluous riches, which we have occasion to observe in our
European society, has grown to be a very objectionable thing, even though I
am convinced that the misery is not, in the slightest degree, caused by
this accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few, and would not be
materially alleviated by a general distribution of it. A social system that
does not prevent this excessive accumulation in a few hands must remain
imperfect, whatever provision it may make in other directions for the
welfare of all.'

'And I cannot altogether get rid of the same feeling,' said my father. 'But
my opinion is that in this revolt against inequality in itself we need see
nothing more than the moral repulsion which every impartial thoughtful man
feels against what have hitherto been the _causes_ of the inequality. Among
us at home, we see that large fortunes are very seldom acquired by means of
pre-eminent individual talent, but are, as a rule, due to the exploitation
of other men; and, when acquired, they are sure to be employed in further
exploitation. This it is that arouses our indignation. If a fortune,
however great, were acquired merely by pre-eminent talent, and employed to
no other end than the heightening of the owner's personal enjoyment--as is
the case in Freeland--the repugnance we now feel would soon pass away. What
does our amiable hostess think upon this point?'

'The repugnance to excessively large fortunes,' replied Mrs. Ney, 'is not,
in my opinion, based upon any injustice in their origin or use, but has a
deeper cause--namely, the fact that, apart from very rare exceptions, the
difference of capacity in men is not so great as to justify such enormous
differences of fortune. Most of the wealth of a highly civilised society
consists of what was bequeathed by the past; and the portion actually
produced by existing individuals is so relatively small that a certain
degree of equality--not merely of rights, but also of enjoyment and
use--possesses a basis in fact and is a requirement of justice. Every
advance in civilisation is synonymous with a progressive diminution of the
differences. Carry your thoughts back to primitive conditions, when the
individual, in his struggle for existence, was almost entirely shut up to
the use of his congenital appliances, and you will find the differences
were very great: only the strong, the agile, the cunning could hold their
own; the less gifted were compelled to give way. As the growth of
civilisation added to men's appliances, so that even the less gifted was
able to procure what was necessary to his subsistence, the difference in
the achievements of different individuals at first remained very great. The
skilful hunter gets a far richer booty than the less skilful one; the
strong and nimble agriculturist achieves with the spade a manifold greater
result than the weak and the slow. The invention of the plough very
materially reduces this difference, and--so far as the difference depends
upon physical capacity--the invention of the power-machine reduces it
almost to _nil_. Machinery more and more takes the place of the energy of
human muscles; and, at the same time, the results of the talent and
experience of previous generations accumulate and, in a growing ratio,
exceed the invention of the actual living generation. It is true that in
intellectual matters the individual differences do not diminish so
completely as in matters dependent upon the corporal powers; but even the
intellectual differences do not justify the colossal inequality suggested
to the mind by the words "a large fortune." The man who drives a
steam-plough may be either a giant or a dwarf, but he gets through the same
amount of work. Quick-wittedness and discretion in conducting the process
of production will considerably increase the result; but in the present day
an achievement which shall exceed the average a hundredfold or a
thousandfold in value is possible only to genius, and it is only to genius
that our sense of justice would accord it.

'I believe that in this respect also our Freeland institutions have hit the
mark. Among us inequality exists only so far as the difference of capacity
justifies it; and we have seen that, in proportion as wealth increases, the
distribution of it becomes automatically more and more equal. As in this
country everything is controlled by a competition which is free in fact,
and not in name merely, it follows as a necessary result that every kind of
capacity is better paid the rarer it is. When we first founded our
commonwealth knowledge and experience in business were rare--that is, the
demand was greater than the supply; they were therefore able to command a
higher price than ordinary labour. This is no longer the case; thanks to
the general improvement in culture and the intensive participation of all
in all kinds of business, head-work, as such, has lost its claim to
exceptional wages. Only when superior intellectual gifts are connected with
knowledge and experience in business can the man who performs head-work
expect to obtain higher pay than the manual labourer. Yet even here there
is to be seen a _relative_ diminution of the higher pay. In the early years
of Freeland a specially talented leader of production could demand six
times as much as the average earnings of a labourer; at present three times
as much as the average is a rare maximum, which in the domain of material
production is exceeded only in isolated cases of pre-eminent inventors. On
the other hand, the earnings of gifted authors and artists in this country
have no definite limits; as their works are above competition, so the
rewards they obtain bear no proportion to those obtainable in ordinary
business.

'But in this way, I think, the most delicate sense of equality can be
satisfied. Economic equality of rights never produces absolute and
universal equality; but it is really accompanied by a general levelling of
the enjoyments of all, and leaves unaffected only such incongruities as the
most fastidious sense of justice will recognise as having their basis in
the nature of things.'

Here ended this conversation, which will ever be a memorable one to me,
because it confirmed my decision to become a Freelander.

CHAPTER XXI

Eden Vale: Aug. 20, ----

In your last you say you think it very strange that in my letters I make no
further mention of the young ladies who for the past six weeks have been
under the same roof with me. When a young Italian--so argues your
inexorable logic--has nothing to say about pretty girls with whom he
associates, and among whom there is one whose first glance--according to
his own confession--threw him into confusion, he has either been rejected
by the lady in question or contemplates giving her an opportunity of
rejecting him. Your logic is right, Louis: I am in love--indeed I was from
the first sight I had of Bertha, David's splendid sister; and I have even
had a narrow escape of being rejected. Not that my beloved has not returned
my affection; as soon as I could summon courage to propose to her, Bertha
confessed, with that undisguised candour which is charming in her--more
correctly, in all the women of Freeland--that on the very first evening of
our acquaintance she felt she should either marry me or marry no one. And
yet, on my first wooing her, I had to listen to a 'No' of the most
determined character. The fact was that Bertha could not make up her mind
to become an Italian duchess; and my father, who--hear it and be
astounded!--pleaded for me, had as a matter of course insisted that she
should go to Italy with me, reside on our ducal estates there, weave the
ducal diadems into her locks--they are of a ravishing blonde--and make it
her life's duty to continue the noble race of the Falieri. My desire to
settle in Freeland as a Freelander was regarded by my father as a foolish
and extravagant whim. You know his views--a strange medley of honest
Liberalism and aristocratic pride: rather, these were his views, but here
in Freeland the democratic side of his character has considerably broadened
and strengthened. Indeed, he became quite enthusiastic in his admiration of
the Freeland institutions. If there were but another branch of the Falieri
to which could be committed the transmission of the ducal traditions, _per
Bacco!_ my father would have at once assented to my wish, and, as he loves
me tenderly, he would not hesitate long before he followed my example. But
his enthusiasm, noble and sincere as it is, would not permit me to lay the
axe at the root of the genealogical tree of a house whose ancestors had
fought among the first Crusaders, and had later, as petty Italian princes,
filled the world with deeds (of infamy). Against my loving Bertha he made
no objection--really and truly, my dear friend, not the least. On the
contrary, he was not a little proud of me when, in answer to his question
whether I was sure of the maiden's love in return, I replied with a
confident 'Yes.' 'Lucky dog you are,' cried he, 'to win that splendid
creature so quickly! Who can match us Falieris!' Bertha had captivated my
father as she had me; and as he entertained the greatest respect for the
Freeland women in general, he had no objection whatever to a _bourgeoise_
daughter-in-law. But only on condition that I gave up the 'insane' idea of
remaining here. 'The girl has more sense in her little finger than you have
in your whole body,' said he; 'she would little relish seeing her lover
cast a shattered ducal crown at her feet. It is very fine to be a Freeland
woman--but, believe me, it is much finer to be a duchess. Besides, these
two very agreeable qualities can easily be united. Spend the winter and
spring in our palaces at Rome and Venice; summer and autumn you could enjoy
freedom on your lake and among your mountains--in my company, if you had no
objection. Let it stand so: I will get Bertha for you, but not another word
about a permanent settlement here.'