XXII GOOD AND BAD THINGS

NOW let us see how many of the good things that we still need so much would automatically come in with the Modern Paradise program of Thinking, Living and Working; 97and how many of the present bad things it would eliminate.

Among the many good things may be mentioned that every member would have an equal equity in the Land, a fine home as soon as born and a full supply of fine tools and machinery, all of which would be inherited from generation to generation, the same as we now inherit the schoolhouses, post office, etc.

A life-long job of self-employment, yielding the full fruit of his or her labor as equal owning Partners, and every man, woman and child worker, whether married or single, personally draws his or her own pay checks for the co-operative labor each performs, whether that labor be industrial, domestic or maternal, and everybody also pays his or her own bills for meals, clothes, personal ornaments, amusements, etc. The average workday would likely be less than three hours daily, the daily work would be right in, or near the home, and the average remuneration of every man, woman and youth worker for a day’s labor would likely average more than $10 worth of wealth.

Everybody would also have the exclusive use of a large private apartment in the Mansion with fine furniture, musical instruments and private bath, if desired; full access to all the 98public departments of all the Buildings; excellent home-raised and prepared meals for a few cents; fine comfortable clothes; a large circle of congenial men, women and children as companions and co-laborers; the most interesting and effective System of Education ever suggested; live in the finest Mansion located in a beautiful park; have all the means of amusements right at home or in some other Modern Paradise as visitors; the use of all kinds of cars, busses and airplanes; and every non-invasive Individual enjoys unimpaired liberty in conduct, eating, dress, mating, etc., based on complete Self-ownership in Ideal Democracy.

They together own and operate a clean, well-filled Department Store where members can buy everything at cost with the first and only honest, stable and efficient System of Money that has yet been proposed; extensive fields and productive gardens; large, modern machinery run at first with cheap Electricity abundantly generated with water power, and later, no doubt, operated with the direct Solar Energy which is continually streaming from the Sun to the Earth in endless quantities; large garden, orchard and nut-bearing forest; thousands of miles of firmly-paved highways; the buildings constructed of Aluminum and Glass; electric 99heating, lighting, cooking and mechanical ventilation, and in the summer mechanical cooling as well as many other good things too numerous to mention.

But the Modern Paradise plan of Co-operative Living and Working does not only usher in the desired good things, but also eliminates practically all existing evils that are now so heavily burdening the people of every land.

There would be no noisy, congested, immoral Cities and no isolated country homes. No cottages and servant-kept mansions in which women and children eke out a crude, lonely life as kitchen, nursery and laundry drudges. No slums and questionable resorts. No landlords and tenants to quarrel and fight; no strikes and lockouts to starve and freeze the Public; no compulsory majority rule to stifle the best thoughts and plans of minorities.

No need for armies, navies, police forces and chaperons and no use for meddlesome Grundyism; no impediments of free speech, free press, free assembly and free non-invasive conduct. No breweries and slaughter houses. No stimulants and narcotics—opium, liquor, tobacco, tea and coffee—to steal the good sense and impair the good health. No masters and servants. No “red light districts.” No compulsory 100education and no involuntary child labor. No monopoly and special privilege. No graft and profiteering and no high cost of living.

There is no extravagant and idle aristocracy to live on the labor of others. No royal palaces and gaudy cathedrals to build and support, and little, if any, use for insane asylums. And after people know enough to stop quarreling and “sinning” there will be no need for lawyers, ministers and judicial judges. No dependent aged parents to be discordantly supported by their children. No worry of parents over their children whether babe or grown-up. No dependent women and begging children. No army of extravagantly salaried rulers and officials on the one hand, and millions of jobless on the other. No heartless multi-millionaires and pauperized beggars. No scheming diplomats and deceiving politicians, and no exploiting commercialism of any kind.

These as well as many other progressive changes in human affairs will undoubtedly be more and more realized by refined posterity long before the close of this Thousand Year Forecast, and many of them will even be approximately attained before the end of the present Century. We may thus at least partly visualize the many grand things posterity will 101enjoy in the future. Posterity will look upon our present doings as we look upon the crude doings of the people of the Stone Age.

Not all the Modern Paradises will at first be operated on such high ideals as I have depicted in the foregoing pages. Some will, no doubt, still stick to the pipe, bottle and cup for a while. Others will see the great benefits of industrial, domestic and parental co-operation, but will not feel at ease without churches, professional schools and some form of boss-ship. Still others will want animals and slaughterhouses to kill them, etc.

But all this unnecessary, unclean, unsanitary, unhealthy and wasteful work will greatly lengthen their average workday and reduce the comforts and conveniences of life in such immature Modern Paradises. But the members will nevertheless reap much of the great benefits from their industrial, domestic and parental co-operation, no matter how crude and superstitious it might be at the beginning. The Survival of the Fittest will, no doubt, soon prevail among the Modern Paradises the same as among individuals. It must all be settled by intelligence.

We may thus see that under the Modern Paradise regime of thinking, living and working, 102there are at first all grades of civilization from the ideal Modern Paradise down to the Indian wigwam, so that everybody can find a suitable place in the wide-open field of sociologic progress where each can feel at ease whether crude or refined.

At the top of the social structure is the ideal Modern Paradise before depicted. The next step down are the Modern Paradises that have many good things, but also have still many bad ones; such as the opium den, smoke house, booze bottle, give-and-take marriage, superstitious mysticism, coffee cup, gambling table, social parasites, scheming politicians, etc.

Below those partially developed Modern Paradises can be the group that are fairly able to co-operate industrially, but are still unable to co-operate domestically. They can live in family cottages like those located on large residence lots as shown in Figure 5, page 33, but not in a Co-operative Mansion. They are still scrappers and fighters. Their average workday is at least twice as long as the workday in an ideal Modern Paradise. Their women and children are also dependent subordinates, and their liberty, comforts and conveniences of life are also very much below the ideal standard, but it fits their sentiments and backward habits, and, therefore, they should 103have it, even if they have to pay dear for it.

Those that are still unable to co-operate on any agreeable basis, but want to see improvements made on our present chaotic conditions of the world as it is now run under the wage-system can work along the progressive lines suggested in Chapter XXIII, page 103; and so on down, until we reach the Indian wigwam. Hence, everybody can find a suitable niche in which each fits best in accordance with the degree of his or her development, and all by voluntary adjustment. Every Reader should ask himself or herself, “Where do I belong in this graduated scale of development? How far am I still from the top of the social ideals?”