Time Will Run Back (20 page)

“The majority may know what it wants, chief, but not how to get it. It is not hard for a man to know what he wants, but it takes intelligence to know what are the proper ways and means for him to get what he wants.”

“True; but it certainly helps if the majority is permitted to try to get what
it
desires rather than what the minority desires.”

“But you haven’t yet told me, chief, how majority rule promotes internal peace. Isn’t a minority likely to start a fight if the majority tries to force something upon it that it doesn’t want?”

“Maybe it would, if it were a minority of 49 per cent—in which case the majority would be well advised to proceed cautiously. In fact, it would always be a good rule for the majority not to try to impose on a large minority any policy to which the latter would too strongly object. Moreover, a member of the majority on one issue never knows when he will be a member of the minority on another. For that reason, majority rule, as I see it, would tend to be less tyrannical than any other kind of rule. And finally—to answer your question, Adams—majority rule is the best way of keeping the peace. Because in the event of an insurrection or a civil war, the majority usually wins, and the larger the majority the more probable is its victory. Therefore, if we decide issues by counting heads or noses, the minority will recognize in advance the futility of resorting to violence in order to get its way. The less vital the issue is, the less disposed the minority will be to start trouble. And once majority decision becomes accepted as the proper way of preventing or settling disputes, it should tend to become the most peaceable and stable of all systems.”

“Very well,” said Adams. “Suppose I agree with everything you have said. I still maintain that majority rule is impossible under socialism—and vice versa.”

“Why?”

“We have just seen why. You say your experiment in democracy failed in the French Soviet Republic because the people have been terrorized for generations by communism and must be educated out of their terror. But you have also pointed out that they will never be educated out of their fear because their fear is inherent in the socialist system. And you have finally convinced me that this is true. Under socialism the State controls all the jobs. Under socialism everybody’s career, everybody’s means of livelihood, depends upon the minority, the hierarchy, already in power. That hierarchy holds economic life-and-death powers over everyone. Therefore nobody’s opinion is free. Nobody has the impartial information to form an intelligent opinion, even if he had the courage to form or express one. Because the State, the ruling hierarchy, prints and controls all the newspapers, all the books and magazines, all the sources of information. It owns all the meeting halls. And nobody has the courage or even the means to express his opinion in public. Under such conditions, not only is public opinion not free, which is the only way in which it could be meaningful, but it cannot be said even to exist.”

Adams is now stating my own arguments better than I stated them, thought Peter. He said aloud: “But can’t we allow private individuals to start their own newspapers, publish their own books and pamphlets, and so on?”

“You mean, chief, to become employers; to hire and exploit printers, reporters, writers and other people for profit; to own printing presses and plants, to own the means of production? All that would be the very negation of socialism.”

“Well, maybe we shouldn’t permit private individuals to own and run these things for a profit, Adams, but just at their own expense and on their own time.”

“Where would they get the capital to start such projects, chief? How long could they stand the loss? Out of what would they pay the expenses? And if their newspapers criticized the government, how long would they hold the particular jobs, the means of livelihood, that the government had assigned to them?”

“The government would have to promise them immunity from punishment,” said Peter.

“Oh, come now, chief, we’ve been through all that! That’s what you promised them in the elections, and they didn’t believe you. For the basic situation remains. You have the
power
to punish them. You have economic life-and-death power over them. The only thing to prevent you from exercising that power would be self-restraint—a quixotic determination to keep your own promise. And that wouldn’t be good enough for a cautious man. He would doubt its reality or its permanence.”

Whenever Peter was stuck for an answer to Adams, he either gazed out of the window or lit a cigarette. This time he did both.

“You confront me with a bleak outlook,” he said at last. “The other day you convinced me that socialism is incompatible with democracy, incompatible with the expression of any free, uncoerced majority will. You are forcing me to admit that the reign of slavery and terror imposed by my father and Bolshekov is not an accident, not some monstrous perversion of the socialist ideal, but merely
the logical and inevitable outcome of the socialist ideal!
You are forcing me to admit that complete socialism means complete deprivation of individual liberty and an absolute government dictatorship.”

Adams looked almost appalled by the extent of his own victory, but he continued: “I’m sorry to seem so negative and disheartening, but I haven’t even mentioned some considerations. For example, once we adopt a Five Year Plan we’ve got to adhere to it; we’ve got to follow it. We can’t have some new transitory majority constantly upsetting, reversing and disorganizing our planned economy—”

“All right, all right,” broke in Peter. “I’ve had enough discouragement for one day.” This way of terminating my conferences with Adams, he thought, is becoming a habit.

ADAMS was nearly a full hour late for the daily conference with Peter.

He arrived pale and shaken. “Some of Bolshekov’s men just tried to assassinate me!” He was breathing hard.

“Where? How?”

“A few minutes after I left the offices”—he paused to catch his breath—“of the Central Planning Board to come here.... I was in my car.... Another limousine whisked by.... A man in the rear machine gunned my car.... aiming at me.... I crouched on the floor. My chauffeur was killed.... The car plunged up on the sidewalk and crashed into a building.”

“Are you hurt?”

“Miraculously, no. But I had a very close call. I don’t mind admitting that my nerves are on edge.”

“What have you done?” “I’ve called the police, and they say they are going to have the bullets extracted from the chauffeur’s body and examined. I don’t think I’m going to get much information from
that.”

“Did you get the car’s number?”

“No. And no witnesses.”

“What kind of car was it?”

“Exactly like the one I use—I used—myself.” “You say this was done by Bolshekov’s men. How do you know?”

Adams stared incredulously at him. “Who else? Who else has the motive? Who else could get the equipment, hire the assassin? Who else would dare? The worst of it is, we don’t know how much support he has, how deep his control goes over the police themselves. Now do you believe me when I tell you that it’s his life or ours? You
must
have him liquidated immediately!”

“I’m not going to have any man shot, or even tried, on mere suspicion,” said Peter. “First, we must have evidence.”

“Moral certainty isn’t enough!” Adams was bitter.

“We can never achieve good ends except by good means,” Peter said. “I want to do everything to protect you, but I told you I am determined to stop lawless violence on the part of the government itself. I mean it.”

“How long do you think you’re going to
be
the government when you allow Bolshekov to try to have us assassinated without any risk to himself?”

Peter did not answer.

“You know if it’s me today, chief, it’s going to be you to morrow.”

Peter gazed out of the window.

“You’re not even going to
remove
Bolshekov?”

“I’m not sure that wouldn’t be the most dangerous course of all,” Peter replied at length. “He’s still too strong, too widely and foolishly admired, and has too big and fanatic a personal following. I must first of all discredit him—or rather, let him discredit himself.”

“How? By introducing ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom?’” Adams’ tone was contemptuous.

“No,” said Peter. “By showing the people that we can get far more production than he could.”

Adams stared at him as if he could hardly believe in such irrelevance. He finally took a pinch of snuff to calm himself. Then he seemed to decide to play along. “And how do you think you are going to do that?”

“Well,” said Peter, “we certainly couldn’t get
less
production. I’ve just been studying the latest reports, which you must also have received, on the agricultural situation, on the famine in Kansas, and on the new outbreak of famine in the Chinese, Indian and Argentinian Soviet Republics.”

Adams stared at him again. His expression said: Isn’t there going to be any more discussion of the fact that I have just had a narrow escape from death? Peter remained stony-faced. Adams finally relaxed into a sardonic smile. “The famine is very serious, but I don’t see what can be done about it. We have signs all over every Soviet Republic:
Work! Work! Produce! Produce! Production Is The Answer!
We have even sent in trained speakers to whip up popular fervor. None of it does any good. The peasants in the American Republic, especially, need to be taught our Russian know-how.”

“Let’s take a look at our system of incentives,” Peter suggested.

“Our system of incentives is very good,” replied Adams. “Each collective farm is assigned a minimum quota of wheat, rice, beans, or what not, that it must turn over to the State. In addition it is allowed to retain a maximum fixed amount of its own production for its own consumption.”

“How much is that fixed maximum?”

“That depends on the particular collective. But what we allow the collective to retain, after it has met its full quota, averages about 5 per cent of what it must turn over to the State.”

“Suppose a collective produces more than the minimum quota for the State?”

“We take it, of course. What else could be done with the surplus?”

“But that doesn’t seem to give any incentive, Adams, for the collective to produce an excess.”

“The collective has the satisfaction of knowing, chief, that it is adding to the supplies available for everyone.”

“Very noble. But it doesn’t seem to act as much of a production incentive with most people. I had a long discussion of that with Bolshekov.”

“Well, if the collective farm’s total production falls below its assigned quota, chief, then both the quota reserved for the State and the quota reserved for the collective’s own consumption are cut by the same percentage as its total production has fallen short. In other words, if a collective produces only one-half of its total production quota, then the State set-aside is reduced by one-half, and collective’s reserve for its own consumption is reduced by one-half.”

“But even if the collective met its full quota, Adams, the reserve for its own consumption has been calculated to be just about enough to keep the workers on the farm alive, hasn’t it?”

“Practically... yes.”

“So under the illustration you have just given, they would be allowed only half enough to keep them alive?” “True; but Wonworld consumers would have suffered correspondingly.”

“Oh, no. What happened to Wonworld consumers generally would depend upon the change in the total production of all the farms considered together, not of any one farm. And it would depend also on how accurately or fairly the expected ‘normal’ production of an individual farm had been figured. And if this arrangement is made to apply one way, Adams, why can’t it be made to apply the other? If the collective produces
more
than its quota for the State, in addition to a minimum reserve balance for its own consumption, why shouldn’t it be allowed to keep the excess for itself?”

“What would it do with that excess, chief? The members of the collective are already entitled to enough over for their own consumption, if they produce it. What could they do with more than they need? Hoard it? And why should any surplus be withheld from the Wonworld consumers who need it?”

“What I am getting at is this, Adams. It seems to me that we would get much more production if workers were rewarded in proportion to their production.”

“That would be a direct violation, chief, of the Marxist platinum rule: ‘To each according to his needs.’”

“Perhaps,” agreed Peter; “but it might help to make real instead of merely rhetorical the first part of that rule: ‘From each according to his ability’ “

“Chief, how are you going to reward workers in proportion to their production? How would you go about it?”

“It seems to me that it ought to be simple.”

“It seems to me that it would be impossible.”

“Why?”

“Well, in the first place, chief, how would you determine what the production of any individual worker actually was? Let’s take the simplest possible case. Let’s take a collective with ioo hands. Let’s say it produces 2500 bushels of wheat. How many bushels has each worker produced?”

“Are we back in kindergarten, Adams? Each worker has produced 25 bushels.”

“Wrong,” said Adams. “The
average
production of 100 hands was 25 bushels each. But some of these hands were sick and produced nothing at all. Others were ignorant, inept or careless, and actually on net balance destroyed part of the total production that would otherwise have been achieved. Some hands worked two or three times as hard as others, and presumably produced two or three times as much wheat—if there were any way of measuring their individual contribution. But there isn’t. All we can say is that the
average
result of all the work and machinery and rain and sunlight applied to those acres was 25 bushels of wheat for each hand employed. But you can’t assign any particular production to any particular hand.”

“I concede your point,” said Peter. “We couldn’t reward each worker in the collective in proportion to his individual production. But we could at least reward the
group
according to their total production, and let them divide it up evenly among themselves. If one collective turned out 25 bushels of wheat per man per year, and another collective 50 bushels, then those in the second collective should share twice as much among them as those in the first.”