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 14 - Some Connection Between Wealth, Labor, Commerce,
Intercommunication, Trade and a Medium of Exchange]
[M]an's conduct, as a whole, always nearly, if not exactly,
corresponds to the social and industrial system under which he
voluntarily lives. We must take into account the conditions, and his
culture. So in our kind, rich world, where men and women work less
than two hours a day at some choice labor which is almost play, and
where their short pleasant day s labor yields, by the aid of economy,
co-operation and machinery, a return of more than $10 worth of your
purchasing power, the temptation for false entries must indeed be
decidedly inconsiderable.
In a world where the social and industrial conditions are so
favorable, and where the contempt for idleness and dishonesty is such
a burden to bear, the degree of temptation for making false entries,
for the purpose of unjustly gaining a few hours labor, is vastly
different than it would be in [the rest of the] world, where thousands
upon thousands are out of employment, where they are severely pinched
by poverty, where the laborer is nothing but an industrial slave,
where the wife and children depend upon the income of the man, where
the sense of justice has been calloused by continual infringements of
rights, where want and the fear of want are continually staring them
in the face, and where fraud, accomplished by avaricious shrewdness,
is applauded instead of being condemned as it is [under cooperative
individualism].
Our ambition is to excel to receive the approval of our companions
and co-laborers. Our individuals, families and communities are even
much prouder of excellent sons and daughters than your parents or
families are here. We do all we can to raise the standard of
excellence and proficiency in every member of the community by let
ting each receive the good and the bad consequences of his own
conduct. Intrinsic worth is our highest aim, because without it the
greatest happiness can not be attained.
[T]he simplest business system that allows the fewest intentional or
accidental errors to creep in and remain undiscovered is the best
system. At the end of each month all the labor records received at the
mint are booked and footed up, and the total monthly amount of money
issued In this wise the minter always has two sets of figures, the one
on his book and the other on the register of the money press. These
two sets of figures must indicate the same amount of money issued.
Capital never does earn anything. Labor earns all. This idea that
capital earns something is an illusion. We have seen that all material
wealth which immediately satisfies man's wants, consists of food,
clothing, shelter and luxuries, and that all these can be actually
produced only by productive labor. The physical molecules, as such,
composing a plow are not wealth, but the plow is wealth no farther
than it required productive labor in its production. For all we know,
there is an inexhaustible amount of iron and steel waiting for us to
be mined, and an inexhaustible opportunity for raising the wood
necessary in the manufacture of plows. The tools with which the plow
is made were also all produced by labor. In a just, economic system
every laborer, whether man, woman, or child, should receive exactly
all he earns, no more and no less; and, if they do that, there will be
nothing left for capital, for all wealth must be produced by labor.
All the communities are free competitors in all fields of industry.
This free, non-monopolistic competition has slowly eliminated all
profit. Every community has an immense amount of capital in its
big-houses, warehouses, and depots; but this capital earns nothing; no
interest and no profit; it is even slowly decaying a loss which must
be repaired by the labor of the members of the community. For this
reason all communities are eager to sell their negotiable commodities,
so as to hold the money of other communities, instead of holding their
own commodities. We are not working for money but for the material
wealth, food, clothing, shelter, and luxuries which the money
represents. In this manner, I think, you can clearly see that labor
earns all, for all the money is issued to the laborer, and that free
competition, founded on a non-monopolistic supply and demand,
determines the price of all commodities and regulates the amount of
their needful production.
[L]aborers, as a class outside the cooperative individualist society,
think that we can not get along without capitalists or millionaires.
They always seem to imagine that capital is the greatest factor in the
production of wealth. That the productive industry of the world would
be fatally crippled or totally destroyed if there were no millionaires
to keep it up.
What we cooperative individualists condemn is the system which
enables some to become capitalists or millionaires by appropriating
the wealth produced by others by monopoly. We do not even particularly
condemn the millionaire. He is a creature of circumstances, a product
of a system.
The vast majority of your productive laborers are working for others,
they having no direct interest in the production of their labors. We
are all working for ourselves; the more we do the more we get. On
account of monopoly, there are in other societies more laborers than
there are places for laborers; this makes wages low and creates an
army of forced idlers.
We settle all advancement by free competition, in which every one is
invited a competitor, to stand on his or her own merits. Some of us
have talents and aptitudes for one thing and some for another. We are
by no means all inclined the same industrially. We are all endeavoring
to push forward to the highest possible plane in our respective fields
of aspirations. But, on the other hand, on account of so much extreme
poverty, and wretchedness resulting from poverty, [most] people today
have scarcely any other ambition than the accumulation of dollars and
cents, in order, on the one hand, to occupy your best so-called social
positions, and on the other to keep want and the fear of want from
your door. We have learned that dollars and cents are easily gotten
after other things have been adjusted harmoniously. We fundamentally
seek for higher and nobler aspirations. After having obtained them the
dollars and cents will easily come. We seek to learn how to co-operate
most harmoniously; how to allow each individual the widest range of
individual freedom; how to acquire the greatest and most useful
information about the phenomenal universe; how to do our respective
parts well, and how to build our happiness on the happiness of our
fellow- man. Such are some of our aspirations, the field of which, no
doubt, is so vast that it can never be completely explored by the
power of human wisdom.
CONTENTS
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