Political fiction; Science fiction; Space travelers -- Fiction
"The first ten years following the Great Wars was a period of
gradualism in all things. Peoples united in small groups. There were
no political or racial divisions. The units were built upon functional
lines. They were natural and free. Above all, they were cooperative.
"It was not communism. Men knew all too well the mental and physical
slavery of that brutally rigid system. It was not rugged individualism
either. Rugged individuals during this period either starved or were
driven out by the starving.
"This natural, cooperative unity spread and became more complex. There
came into being natural associations of units. Not exclusive but
inclusive associations that linked all who would join and could produce
surpluses. Productivity increased thereby. Men were intelligent enough
to avoid many of the old abuses.
"Ways were found to harness the productivity of each man and woman.
Genuine efforts were made to avoid misfits, to make those who produced
fit. It was realized, Mr. Craig, that the unhappy man will infect
others with his misery, and the trouble he will cause is much more
difficult to undo than to prevent in the first place.
"There were, of course, mistakes, false starts. But the new-found
system of world-wide unity proved flexible. It was multiple-based. To
a very large degree, all men fitted into it logically and naturally.
It was the first truly 'grass-roots' economic and social system in the
history of man. And it was a great tribute to his ability to work out
his destiny, particularly since it came after a tragedy that was so
enormous and devastating.
"The list of its successes is incredible. For in a decade the
age-old problem of poverty seemed to have disappeared. There were no
significant outbreaks of disorder and lawlessness--indeed, there was
comparatively little need for a written law. The principle of mutuality
and cooperation was too strongly conditioned into the people.
"Scientifically, the first half of the new century, a scant twenty-five
years after the last bomb was dropped, was the greatest in man's
history. Man reached the stars. He began to know the molecule, the
atom, the electron. He pushed the frontier of his knowledge deep into
both microcosm and macrocosm.
"But a fatal flaw had long before developed in the structure, wonderful
as it was. It was an age-old flaw. It was one that was disguised by the
very nature of the new system. When it was recognized, that flaw had
so weakened the system that its spread was all but inevitable. It is a
flaw that will always plague man to a certain extent, but one that must
keep us eternally vigilant.
"It is this: the greatest human good comes not in how well you learn to
control man and keep him from harming himself. What determines it is
how completely you learn to free him.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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