P813:2, 72:5.1
The industrial situation among this people is far from their ideals; capital
and labor still have their troubles, but both are becoming adjusted to the
plan of sincere co-operation. On this unique continent the workers are increasingly
becoming
shareholders in all industrial concerns; every intelligent laborer
is slowly becoming a small capitalist.
P813:3, 72:5.2
Social antagonisms are lessening, and good will is growing apace. No grave
economic problems have arisen out of the abolition of slavery (over one hundred
years ago) since this adjustment was effected gradually by the liberation
of two per cent each year. Those slaves who satisfactorily passed mental,
moral, and physical tests were granted citizenship; many of these superior
slaves were war captives or children of such captives. Some fifty years ago
they deported the last of their inferior slaves, and still more recently they
are addressing themselves to the task of reducing the numbers of their degenerate
and vicious classes.
P813:4, 72:5.3
These people have recently developed new techniques for the adjustment of
industrial misunderstandings and for the correction of economic abuses which
are marked improvements over their older methods of settling such problems.
Violence has been outlawed as a procedure in adjusting either personal or
industrial differences. Wages, profits, and other economic problems are not
rigidly regulated, but they are in general controlled by the industrial legislatures,
while all disputes arising out of industry are passed upon by the industrial
courts.
P813:5, 72:5.4
The industrial courts are only thirty years old but are functioning very satisfactorily.
The most recent development provides that hereafter the industrial courts
shall recognize legal compensation as falling in three divisions:
P813:10, 72:5.6
Every ten years the regional executives adjust and decree the lawful hours
of daily gainful toil. Industry now operates on a five-day week, working four
and playing one. These people labor six hours each working day and, like students,
nine months in the year of ten. Vacation is usually spent in travel, and new
methods of transportation having been so recently developed, the whole nation
is travel bent. The climate favors travel about eight months in the year,
and they are making the most of their opportunities.
P813:11, 72:5.7
Two hundred years ago the profit motive was wholly dominant in industry, but
today it is being rapidly displaced by other and higher driving forces. Competition
is keen on this continent, but much of it has been transferred from industry
to play, skill, scientific achievement, and intellectual attainment. It is
most active in social service and governmental loyalty. Among this people
public service is rapidly becoming the chief goal of ambition. The richest
man on the continent works six hours a day in the office of his machine shop
and then
hastens over to the local branch of the school of statesmanship,
where he seeks to qualify for public service.
P814:1, 72:5.8
Labor is becoming more honorable on this continent, and all able-bodied citizens
over eighteen work either at home and on farms, at some recognized industry,
on the public works where the temporarily unemployed are absorbed, or else
in the corps of compulsory laborers in the mines.
P814:2, 72:5.9
These people are also beginning to foster a new form of social disgust --
disgust for both idleness and unearned wealth. Slowly but certainly they are
conquering their machines. Once they, too, struggled for political liberty
and subsequently for economic freedom. Now are they entering upon the enjoyment
of both while in addition they are beginning to appreciate their well-earned
leisure, which can be devoted to increased self-realization.