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

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."

"I suppose you mean that you have no money to pay wages
in," said I. "But the credit given the worker at the government
storehouse answers to his wages with us. How is the amount of
the credit given respectively to the workers in different lines
determined? By what title does the individual claim his particular
share? What is the basis of allotment?"

"His title," replied Dr. Leete, "is his humanity. The basis of
his claim is the fact that he is a man."

"The fact that he is a man!" I repeated, incredulously. "Do
you possibly mean that all have the same share?"

"Most assuredly."

The readers of this book never having practically known any
other arrangement, or perhaps very carefully considered the
historical accounts of former epochs in which a very different
system prevailed, cannot be expected to appreciate the stupor of
amazement into which Dr. Leete's simple statement plunged
me.

"You see," he said, smiling, "that it is not merely that we have
no money to pay wages in, but, as I said, we have nothing at all
answering to your idea of wages."

By this time I had pulled myself together sufficiently to voice
some of the criticisms which, man of the nineteenth century as I
was, came uppermost in my mind, upon this to me astounding
arrangement. "Some men do twice the work of others!" I exclaimed.
"Are the clever workmen content with a plan that
ranks them with the indifferent?"

"We leave no possible ground for any complaint of injustice,"
replied Dr. Leete, "by requiring precisely the same measure of
service from all."

"How can you do that, I should like to know, when no two
men's powers are the same?"

"Nothing could be simpler," was Dr. Leete's reply. "We
require of each that he shall make the same effort; that is, we
demand of him the best service it is in his power to give."

"And supposing all do the best they can," I answered, "the