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

"But what inducement," I asked, "can a man have to put
forth his best endeavors when, however much or little he
accomplishes, his income remains the same? High characters
may be moved by devotion to the common welfare under such a
system, but does not the average man tend to rest back on his
oar, reasoning that it is of no use to make a special effort, since
the effort will not increase his income, nor its withholding
diminish it?"

"Does it then really seem to you," answered my companion,
"that human nature is insensible to any motives save fear of
want and love of luxury, that you should expect security and
equality of livelihood to leave them without possible incentives
to effort? Your contemporaries did not really think so, though
they might fancy they did. When it was a question of the
grandest class of efforts, the most absolute self-devotion, they
depended on quite other incentives. Not higher wages, but
honor and the hope of men's gratitude, patriotism and the
inspiration of duty, were the motives which they set before their
soldiers when it was a question of dying for the nation, and
never was there an age of the world when those motives did not
call out what is best and noblest in men. And not only this, but
when you come to analyze the love of money which was the
general impulse to effort in your day, you find that the dread of
want and desire of luxury was but one of several motives which
the pursuit of money represented; the others, and with many the
more influential, being desire of power, of social position, and
reputation for ability and success. So you see that though we
have abolished poverty and the fear of it, and inordinate luxury
with the hope of it, we have not touched the greater part of the
motives which underlay the love of money in former times, or
any of those which prompted the supremer sorts of effort. The
coarser motives, which no longer move us, have been replaced by
higher motives wholly unknown to the mere wage earners of
your age. Now that industry of whatever sort is no longer
self-service, but service of the nation, patriotism, passion for
humanity, impel the worker as in your day they did the soldier.
The army of industry is an army, not alone by virtue of its
perfect organization, but by reason also of the ardor of self-
devotion which animates its members.

"But as you used to supplement the motives of patriotism
with the love of glory, in order to stimulate the valor of your
soldiers, so do we. Based as our industrial system is on the
principle of requiring the same unit of effort from every man,
that is, the best he can do, you will see that the means by which
we spur the workers to do their best must be a very essential part
of our scheme. With us, diligence in the national service is the
sole and certain way to public repute, social distinction, and