In the period of humanity’s manhood, the so-called “science” of economics,
the “dismal science” of political economy, will become a genuine science
based upon the laws of the time-binding energies of humanity; it will
become the light of Human Engineering—promoter, guardian, and guide of
human weal. For it will discover, and will teach that a _human_ life, a
time-binding life, is not merely a _civilized_ life but a _civilizing_
life; it will know and will teach that a civilizing life is a life devoted
to the production of potential and kinetic use-values—to the creation,
that is, of material and spiritual wealth; it will know and will teach
that wealth—both material and spiritual wealth—is a natural
phenomenon—offspring of the marriage of Time and human Toil; it will know
and will teach that the wealth in the world at any given moment is almost
wholly the _inherited_ fruit of time and the labor of the dead; and so it
will ask: To whom does the inheritance rightly belong? Does it of right
belong to Smith and Brown? If so, _why_? Or does it of right belong to
man—to humanity? If so, _why_? And what does “humanity” include? Only the
living, who are relatively few? Or both the living and unborn? The
Economics of humanity’s manhood will not only ask these questions but it
will answer them and answer them aright. In seeking the answers, it will
discover some obvious truths and many old words will acquire new meanings
consistent with the time-binding nature of man. It will discover and will
teach that the time-binders of a given generation are _posterity_ and
_ancestry_ at once—posterity of the dead, ancestry of all the generations
to come; it will discover and will teach that in this time-binding double
relationship uniting past and future in a single living growing Reality,
are to be found the obligations of time-binding ethics and the seat of its
authority; economics will know and will teach that _human_
posterity—time-binding posterity—can not inherit the fruits of time and
dead men’s toil _as animals inherit the wild fruits of the earth, to fight
about them and to devour them_, but only as _trustees_ for the generations
to come; it will know and will teach that "capitalistic" lust to _keep_
for SELF and “proletarian” lust to _get_ for SELF are both of them
_space-binding_ lust—animal lust—beneath the level of time-binding life.
The economics of humanity’s manhood will know and will teach that the
characteristic energies of man as man are by _nature_ civilizing energies,
wealth-producing energies, time-binding energies, the peaceful energies of
inventive mind, of growing knowledge and understanding and skill and
light; it will know and will teach that these energies of existing men
united with one billion six hundred million available “sun-man” powers
united with the ten billion living “man-powers of the dead,” if they be
not wasted by ignorance and selfishness, by conflict and competition
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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