"Edward Bellamy. Lookimg Backward From 2000 to 1887" - читать интересную книгу автора

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