Subsequent rearrangement it had hoped to leave to its
successors--whoever they might be. But this, it became more and more
manifest, was absolutely impossible. As well might the council have
proposed a revival of slavery. The capitalist system had already been
smashed beyond repair by the onset of limitless gold and energy; it fell
to pieces at the first endeavour to stand it up again. Already before
the war half of the industrial class had been out of work, the attempt
to put them back into wages employment on the old lines was futile from
the outset--the absolute shattering of the currency system alone would
have been sufficient to prevent that, and it was necessary therefore to
take over the housing, feeding, and clothing of this worldwide multitude
without exacting any return in labour whatever. In a little while the
mere absence of occupation for so great a multitude of people everywhere
became an evident social danger, and the government was obliged to
resort to such devices as simple decorative work in wood and stone, the
manufacture of hand-woven textiles, fruit-growing, flower-growing, and
landscape gardening on a grand scale to keep the less adaptable out of
mischief, and of paying wages to the younger adults for attendance at
schools that would equip them to use the new atomic machinery.
Pages:
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220