E-text prepared by Peter Vachuska, Graeme Mackreth, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original diagrams. See 28991-h.htm or 28991-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/28991/pg28991-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28991/28991-h.zip) THE NEXT STEP A Plan for Economic World Federation by SCOTT NEARING Author of _The American Empire_ Ridgewood, New Jersey Nellie Seeds Nearing 1922 * * * * * * _By the same author_ WAGES IN THE UNITED STATES. FINANCING THE WAGE EARNER FAMILY. REDUCING THE COST OF LIVING. ANTHRACITE. POVERTY AND RICHES. SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT. SOCIAL RELIGION. WOMEN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS. (Collaboration with Nellie Nearing) THE SUPER RACE. ELEMENTS OF ECONOMICS. THE NEW EDUCATION. ECONOMICS. COMMUNITY CIVICS. (Collaboration with Jessie Field) SOLUTION OF THE CHILD LABOR PROBLEM. SOCIAL SANITY. THE AMERICAN EMPIRE. * * * * * * Copyright, 1922 All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America _This book is dedicated to the task of emancipating the human race from economic servitude_ "The community needs service first, regardless of who gets the profits, because its life depends on the service it gets." "Organizing for Work." H.L. GANTT. "It is not common language, literature and tradition alone, nor yet clearly defined or strategic frontiers, that will in the future give stability to the boundary lines of Europe, but rather such distribution of its supplies of coal and iron as will prevent any of the great nations of Europe becoming strong enough to dominate or absorb all the others." "The Economic Basis of an Enduring Peace." C.W. MACFARLANE. "Men cannot exist in their present numbers on the earth without world co-operation." "Our Social Heritage." GRAHAM WALLAS. "The real way, surely, in which to organize the interests of producers is by working out a delimitation of industry, and confiding the care of its problems to those most concerned with them. This is, in fact, a kind of federalism in which the powers represented are not areas but functions." "Foundations of Sovereignty." H.J. LASKI. SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT Men progress in proportion as they are able to fit themselves for life, and to fit life to themselves. Both processes go on unceasingly.