A Cityless and Countryless World
An Outline of Practical Co-Operative Individualism
Henry Olerich
[A condensed and edited version of the book
originally published by Gilmore & Olerich, Holstein, Iowa, 1893 /
CHAPTER 11 - Exterior of "Big-House"]
Every well-informed person knows that our world, as a whole, is
better to-day than it ever was before. [We] enjoy more security, more
kindness, more intelligence and more freedom than you ever did in any
preceding age. The conditions which we find on earth are, as a whole,
undoubtedly nearly in tune with our social and industrial culture; and
the only known power in the universe that can substitute a higher and
nobler order of things is additional intelligence. Acts, as we have
seen, are always in harmony with the intelligence of the actor.
We can not hope to find much good work done in a world where the
division of labor is so imperfect as it is [today]. [The] farmer is,
as a rule, at the same time agriculturist, horticulturist, stock
breeder, butcher, dairyman, shepherd, carpenter and poultry raiser. On
the other hand, [the] city laborer must frequently be idle, or accept
any kind of labor he can get, whether he is proficient in it or
whether he is a bungler at it.
Very rarely one loses his life by accident in our mine. We value life
so highly that, if things are not very secure, no one will go into the
mine. We are not driven by a boss and by poverty, like many of your
miners are, who have to go or lose their position. We go when and
where we like. No one has the power to throw us out of employment nor
to make us poor.
[W]e have long ago abandoned the use of coal for heating and lighting
purposes, and also for the generating of motive power. We use
electricity and compressed air for all this. We employ wonderfully
simple and powerful storage battery cells, which we charge either with
wind power, water power or with compressed air engines.
[A set of development proposals in Scientific American are
worthy of consideration]. Farmers along the line can build cheap side
switches with light rails, which will enable cars to be run directly
to the doors of their barns and granaries, to facilitate the
transportation of the produce of their land, thus rendering them
largely independent of the condition of the ordinary wagon roads,
which, by the way, have become very poor through neglect since the
inauguration of the railroad system. ... The moment the proposed road
is completed and put in operation, all lands throughout the district
traversed by the road will be increased in value from one to two
hundred per cent, and ultimately, and that at a day not very far
distant, the land immediately contiguous to the road will be selling
by the front foot instead of, as at present, by the acre, with very
little demand for even this.
There are still many monopolistic features in it as far as the social
and economic principles are concerned, but this proposed railway with
its lines of boulevards is a kind of a rude, primitive community,
which will no doubt grow in regularity, freedom and equitable
prosperity.
The advantages of manufacturing on a large scale are many and
important. Let us exemplify this more fully. When every individual had
to make his own garments and his own house, like primitive people do,
both clothes and houses were scarce and poor, for several reasons
which you undoubtedly understand. It is necessary, in order to
manufacture a good article with little labor, first, to be a skillful
workman, and, second, to have good tools and machinery to work with.
The same person cannot be skilled in all trades, and, even if he
could, he should still manufacture on a large scale; for it would
require far too much needless labor for every person to own as good
machinery and tools as many men can afford to own together, and the
better the tools and machinery, the more and the better goods can be
manufactured with the same amount of labor. Every individual can not
own a good tailor shop, a convenient shoe factory and a large
watchmaking establishment. Division of labor should be as complete as
possible, not only among individuals, but among communities as well.
It is very likely true that the land of Belgium can, under [the
existing] social and industrial system, not support, without
importation, its own inhabitants; but that does not argue in favor of
the fact that [other people living] under a different social and
industrial system, can sustain, in superfluity, a population nearly
twice as dense as that of Belgium.
"Let us take an illustration. If the American Indians, who
formerly lived a hunter's life on the present area of the United
States, had been questioned before the discovery of America about the
density of population of their country, they would, no doubt, have
said that their country was more densely populated at that time than
it had ever been before, and that it would be utterly impossible for
the land area comprising the present limits of the United States to
support a population of over sixty millions of people who eat and
waste so much, who wear so many good clothes, and who live in such
good wigwams as the people of the United States actually do at the
present time. Those Indians would undoubtedly have further argued that
they had better weapons and tools, better wigwams, better clothes and
better food than any of their ancestors had enjoyed, and that
therefore the earth would be unable to do much better than it is
already doing. But, the white man, actually showed the Indians
differently, when [we] settled among them. [We] changed the system of
making a livelihood, to something of which the Indians had never
thought; and very likely if one could have propounded a system similar
to our present one, he would have been branded a traitor to his
country, and a heretic to his religion. Instead of leading a hunter's
life, which requires a large territory and a sparse population, you
partially live on agricultural products, and partially on domestic,
instead of wild, animals. The Indian lived almost exclusively on a
flesh diet game, while [we] cultivate the soil and raised stock. [O]ur
industrial system is able to support a population vastly more dense
than the Indian's system was capable of supporting. So you see, the
error was not that the earth is unable to sustain a denser population
than the Indian's, but that the Indian was not living under that
social and industrial system which is capable of sustaining a dense
population. The Indians mistake was, that they measured the possible
maximum density of population by the standard of their social and
industrial system. They knew that thousands of their companions were
in want, and that they were frequently pressing on subsistence in all
directions.
Just so it is with [us] at the present time. [We] are apparently
always figuring on what can be done under our present system. [We], by
adopting a social and industrial system which is capable of sustaining
a denser population, showed the Indians that they had not reached the
maximum density of population. Now I want to show you that [we] are as
mistaken on our present density of population as the Indians were on
theirs.
We have seen that the Indians subsisted almost exclusively on animal
food game, while [we] gradually became more and more a vegetarian, and
lived on the flesh of domestic animals, instead of wild game. [O]ur
system is capable of sustaining a denser population than the Indian
system is, but the [cooperative individualists] have continued to
change the system which [we] began still further; therefore we are
capable of supporting a population of over 800 to the square mile, in
superfluity, while [we] are sometimes pressing on subsistence with a
population of much less that 100 to the square mile.
Now let me briefly enumerate a few of the most conspicuous
differences existing between [the current] system and [cooperative
individualism], which enable us to sustain a population so much denser
than [is now the case]. A vegetarian requires much less land area than
a flesh eater, and [cooperative individualists] are almost exclusively
vegetarians, while [others] are partly vegetarians but largely
carnivorous (flesh eaters). We are wasting no land for the production
of tea, coffee, tobacco, intoxicating liquor, opium, etc., which we
claim contain very little if any nutriment. Much of your crops is
spoiled and damaged by curing it out doors; we do all our drying and
curing artificially, and not a particle is lost, spoiled or damaged.
Our clothing is not made and worn so wastefully, and our fashions are
not so changeable as yours. Our manner of cooking and eating is not
half so wasteful as yours. We save an immense amount of land by not
fencing it off into little lots and farms like you do. In this manner
you, first, waste the land occupied by the fences; secondly, you
require an immense amount of additional land on which to produce the
fencing material posts and lumber; and thirdly, fencing requires labor
which involves a physiological waste that must be repaired by
additional food raised on land. We get our building material nearly
all out of the earth, while you use largely lumber, etc., which are
grown on the land surface of the earth. Many of us live together in
one house, and it requires much less labor and material to build and
maintain one large residence than it does to build and maintain many
smaller ones. By extensive voluntary co-operation, we are enabled to
do much work with machinery which you have to do by hand.
You have a vast amount of wealth employed in an army and a navy. The
cavalry horses require feed; the man-of-war requires timber for its
construction; your fortifications, your arsenals, your guns, your
navy, etc., all require material which is largely produced by the land
surface. Their construction requires a vast amount of unproductive
labor a physiological waste which must be repaired by food. Then,
again, you often destroy by war countless millions of wealth; in fact
you sometimes devastate whole countries. We have no war, no armies and
navies to- support, no destruction of wealth by war. You have to raise
food for the reparation of the waste caused by your immense amount of
unproductive and destructive labor. You, as well as we, require an
immense amount of power to do the work: to build the houses, to plow,
sow, and harvest, to heat the apartments, to run the train and
factory. You raise and. feed thousands and millions of draft-animals,
horses, oxen, and mules, which draw the plow, wagon, etc., for you;
they all have to be fed with feed which is raised on the surface of
the earth, and which requires land area for its production. We have no
draft-animals to feed no hay and corn to raise for them. We receive
all our motive power from the atmospheric current and water power.
Thus man, during his different stages of physical and intellectual
advancement, employs different motive power.
The foregoing, as you no doubt comprehend, are a few of the many
reasons why we can support a denser population than you can.
CONTENTS
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