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

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