Stein said, “It’s a planning body which coordinates all production, distribution—”
“You told me that the other day. Who composes it?”
“Representatives from all the different guilds. The Medical Guild, the Industrial Production Guild, the Communications Guild, the Transportation Guild, the—”
“All right. I get the message. Every useful type of work is represented in one guild or the other. How are these representatives appointed?”
The three of them looked at him as though the question was idiotic. Edmonds said, “Why they’re elected by the membership of the guilds.”
“I see,” Tracy said, taking a sip of his coffee. “And this congress is the nearest thing to a government the world has these days.”
“Yes.” Tracy tilted his head slightly as he looked at Jo Edmonds. He said, “You told me last night that the socioeconomic system today was anarchism. But what you’re describing now isn’t anarchy. Anarchy presupposes no government at all, which, of course, is nonsense in a highly industrialized society. What you’re describing seems to be a highly refined type of syndicalism. I thought you were a student of socioeconomics.”
Edmonds smiled wryly and said, “I was being facetious last night.” He thought about it. “I don’t believe that the present socioeconomic system fits any of the cut-and-dried definitions of the past: capitalism, feudalism, socialism, communism. Perhaps you could make an argument for calling this a form of socialism. God knows, everybody who ever called himself a socialist had a different definition of what it was. In your day, some people accused Roosevelt of being a socialist. Hitler called himself a National Socialist. The British were supposedly under a socialist government, as were the Scandinavian countries, all of them complete with royal families, a holdover from feudalism. The Russians called themselves, interchangeably, both communist and socialist. Oh yes, the word socialist is elastic, so, if you wish, you could call this socialism.”
“Well, it sure as hell isn’t capitalism,” Tracy said, pouring more coffee.
Stein said, “In point of fact, you didn’t actually have classical capitalism in your own time, Tracy Cogswell. Practically all of the advanced nations had a system of what you might call State Capitalism.”
Tracy scowled at him. “How do you mean?”
“Where so-called free enterprise ended and government began was moot. High-ranking officials in both seemed interchangeable. A cabinet secretary, one day, would be president of a major corporation the next, or vice versa. Many of the larger corporations were subsidized in one way or the other. Oil and mining companies were allowed fabulously large tax deductions for depletion; billionaires such as Paul Getty sometimes paid no taxes at all. The subsidizing of shipping, both building ships and running shipping lines, was another example. If the socioeconomic system had been classical capitalism, it would have been a matter of sink or swim. If shipping couldn’t compete with foreign lines, it would have gone under and the cheaper carriers of foreign countries would have been utilized. There are many other examples. Somewhat after the time you were, ah, put to sleep, Lockheed, one of the big airplane manufacturers, faced bankruptcy. The government loaned them hundreds of millions of dollars. Under classical capitalism, they would have been allowed to go under and more efficient competitors, such as Boeing, would have taken over that corporation’s markets. No, I’m afraid that free enterprise in your time was a thing of the past. Even the farmers were subsidized, especially the very big ones.”
“Okay, okay,” Tracy said impatiently. “As usual, we’ve gotten sidetracked. From what you say, this International Congress of Guilds is all you’ve got in the way of government. Now, how does somebody like you vote for a representative in it?” He looked at Walter Stein.
“Me?” theothersaid. “I’m not a member of a guild. The computers decided I wasn’t needed by the Medical Guild. So I have no vote.”
“Oh, great,” Tracy said. “Nobody but members of a guild get to vote, and less than two percent of the population work, and hence, are members of guilds. Whatever happened to democracy?”
Jo Edmonds put down his napkin and said, “We seem to be defending a system that we’re trying to eliminate, however… ” He came to his feet and went into the living room and to the phone screen there. He dialed and then dialed again.
Finally, he came back and reseated himself and said to Tracy, “What was the last presidential election you experienced in America?”
Tracy scowled. “1956.”
“That’s what I thought. What was the population at that time?”
Tracy thought before saying, “Pushing two hundred million, as I recall.”
“Yes, not quite but almost. Eisenhower won the election. He got thirty-five million votes. Between one out of five and one out of six of the population voted for him, in short. This is democracy? Once again, the term is somewhat elastic. Supposedly, Athens, during the Golden Age, achieved one of the greatest democracies of all time. But check back. Only male Athenian citizens were allowed the franchise. Slaves, and other noncitizens, who outnumbered the Athenians at least eight to one, were not allowed the vote. Neither were women. This is democracy?”
Tracy sighed. “Sidetracked again,” he said. “Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. I want to know something about this underground of yours, your outfit for overthrowing things as they are and getting the human race back on the good old treadmill.”
The three of them looked at each other with an almost apprehensive manner.
Tracy poured himself still more coffee and said impatiently, “How does your underground plan to overthrow the present system and what does it expect to take its place?” He sighed again and added, “I’m in, I suppose. After what I saw last night, I’d have to be in. I don’t believe even you realize some of the ramifications of those programmed Dream Palaces.”
“How do you mean?” Betty said.
“They’ve been developing for something like five years, Jo told me, so you’ve gotten used to the idea a step at a time. But they came on me like a slap in the face. The way things are now, you’re only allowed eight hours at a time, of dreams, on the theory that for health’s sake you’ve got to spend the other sixteen hours eating, exercising and getting some real sleep. Well, your wisenheimer computers have to figure out only one problem, getting real rest during the programmed dreaming. Then a dream addict could spend all his time at it.”
Jo said worriedly, “But exercise and food—”
“Surely they could build something like an automatic massage machine to cover the exercise and the dreamers could be fed intravenously.”
“Good God,” the academician blurted. “You’re right.”
“Yes,” Tracy said, sipping away at the coffee. “But we’re off on a tangent again. What’s your underground’s program?”
There was a pause before the academician said, “The fact is, we don’t have one.”
Tracy stared at him unbelievingly. “What do you mean? I want to know how you expect to get from here to there, and what it will look like when we reach it.”
“I know,” the other nodded, “but we don’t have a program. That’s exactly why we brought you into this century, Tracy Cogswell. We want you to help us work out a plan of action and the new society of the future.”
“I’ll be a sonofabitch,” Tracy said. He put down his cup and stared around at the three of them, one by one. He rubbed a weary hand over his face before saying, “Do I look like Thomas Jefferson, or Tom Paine, or Karl Marx, or whoever? I was a field man, not a theoretician. Sure, I’ve read a lot of the books, the classics of political economy, but I’m no scholar in the field. I followed orders and suggestions; I didn’t think them up.”