"What you said about government and business is absurd," he stated coldly. It was
a tone of voice that had not been heard much at the congress so far, contemptuous and
dismissive. "Governments always regulate the kinds of business they allow.
Economics is a legal matter, a system of laws. So far, we have been saying in the
Martian underground that as a matter of law, democracy and self-government are the
innate rights of every person, and that these rights are not to be suspended when a
person goes to work. You"-he waved a hand to indicate he did not know Antar's
name-"do you believe in democracy and self-rule?"
"Yes!" Antar said defensively.
"Do you believe in democracy and self-rule as the fundamental values that
government ought to encourage?"
"Yes!" Antar repeated, looking more and more annoyed.
"Very well. If democracy and self-rule are the fundamentals, then why should
people give up these rights when they enter their workplace? In politics we fight like
tigers for freedom, for the right to elect our leaders, for freedom of movement, choice
of residence, choice of what work to pursue- control of our lives, in short. And then
we wake up in the morning and go to work, and all those rights disappear. We no
longer insist on them. And so for most of the day we return to feudalism. That is what
capitalism is-a version of feudalism in which capital replaces land, and business
leaders replace kings. But the hierarchy remains. And so we still hand over our lives'
labor, under duress, to feed rulers who do no real work."
"Business leaders work," Antar said sharply. "And they take the financial risks-"
"The so-called risk of the capitalist is merely one of the privileges of capital."
"Management-"
"Yes yes. Don't interrupt me. Management is a real thing, a technical matter. But it
can be controlled by labor just as well as by capital. Capital itself is simply the useful
residue of the work of past laborers, and it could belong to everyone as well as to a
few. There is no reason why a tiny nobility should own the capital, and everyone else
therefore be in service to them. There is no reason they should give us a living wage
and take all the rest that we produce. No! The system called capitalist democracy was
not really democratic at all. That is why it was able to turn so quickly into the
metanational system, in which democracy grew ever weaker and capitalism ever
stronger. In which one percent of the population owned half of the wealth, and five
percent of the population owned ninety-five percent of the wealth. History has shown
which values were real in that system. And the sad thing is that the injustice and
suffering caused by it were not at all necessary, in that the technical means have
existed since the eighteenth century to provide the basics of life to all.
"So. We must change. It is time. If self-rule is a fundamental value, if simple
justice is a value, then they are values everywhere, including in the workplace where
we spend so much of our lives. That was what was said in point four of the Dorsa
Brevia agreement. It says everyone's work is their own, and the worth of it cannot be
taken away. It says that the various modes of production belong to those who created
them, and to the common good of the future generations. It says that the world is
something we all steward together. That is what it says. And in our years on Mars, we
have developed an economic system that can keep all those promises. That has been
our work these last fifty years. In the system we have developed, all economic
enterprises are to be small cooperatives, owned by their workers and by no one else.
They hire their management, or manage themselves. Industry guilds and co-op
associations will form the larger structures necessary to regulate trade and the market,
share capital, and create credit."
Antar said scornfully, "These are nothing but ideas. It is utopianism and nothing
more."
"Not at all." Again Vlad waved him away. "The system is based on models from
Terran history, and its various parts have all been tested on both worlds, and have
succeeded very well. You don't know about this partly because you are ignorant, and
partly because metanationalism itself steadfastly ignored and denied all alternatives to
it. But most of our microeconomy has been in successful operation for centuries in the
Mondragon region of Spain. The different parts of the macroeconomy have been used
in the pseudo-metanat Praxis, in Switzerland, in India's state of Kerala, in Bhutan, in
Bologna Italy, and in many other places, including the Martian underground itself.
These organizations were the precursors to our economy, which will be democratic in
a way capitalism never even tried to be."
A synthesis of systems. And Vladimir Taneev was a very great synthesist; it was
said that all the components of the longevity treatment had already been there, for
instance, and that Vlad and Ursula had simply put them together. Now in his
economic work with Marina he was claiming to have done the same kind of thing.
And although he had not mentioned the longevity treatment in this discussion,
nevertheless it lay there like the table itself, a big cobbled-together achievement, part
of everyone's lives. Art looked around and thought he could see people thinking, well,
he did it once in biology and it worked; could economics be more difficult?
Against this unspoken thought, this unthought feeling, Antar's objections did not
seem like much. Metanational capitalism's track record at this point did little to
support it; in the last century it had precipitated a massive war, chewed up the Earth,
and torn its societies apart. Why should they not try something new, given that
record?
Someone from Hiranyagarba stood and made an objection from the opposite
direction, noting that they seemed to be abandoning the gift economy by which the
Mars underground had lived.
Vlad shook his head impatiently. "I believe in the underground economy, I assure
you, but it has always been a mixed economy. Pure gift exchange coexisted with a
monetary exchange, in which neoclassical market rationality, that is to say the profit
mechanism, was bracketed and contained by society to direct it to serve higher values,
such as justice and freedom. Economic rationality is simply not the highest value. It is
a tool to calculate costs and benefits, only one part of a larger equation concerning
human welfare. The larger equation is called a mixed economy, and that is what we
are constructing here. We are proposing a complex system, with public and private
spheres of economic activity. It may be that we ask people to give, throughout their
lives, about a year of their work to the public good, as in Switzerland's national
service. That labor pool, plus taxes on private co-ops for use of the land and its
resources, will enable us to guarantee the so-called social rights we have been
discussing-housing, health care, food, education- things that should not be at the
mercy of market rationality. Because la salute non si paga, as the Italian workers used
to say. Health is not for sale!"
This was especially important to Vlad, Art could see. Which made sense-for in the
metanational order, health most certainly had been for sale, not only medical care and
food and housing, but preeminently the longevity treatment itself, which so far had
been going only to those who could afford it. Vlad's greatest invention, in other
words, had become the property of the privileged, the ultimate class distinction-long
life or early death-a physicaliza-tion of class that almost resembled divergent species.
No wonder he was angry; no wonder he had turned all his efforts to devising an
economic system that would transform the longevity treatment from a catastrophic
possession to a blessing available to all.
"So nothing will be left to the market," Antar said.
"No no no," Vlad said, waving at Antar more irritably than ever. "The market will
always exist. It is the mechanism by which things and services are exchanged.
Competition to provide the best product at the best price, this is inevitable and
healthy. But on Mars it will be directed by society in a more active way. There will be
not-for-profit status to vital life-support matters, and then the freest part of the market
will be directed away from the basics of existence toward nonessentials, where
venture enterprises can be undertaken by worker-owned co-ops, who will be free to
try what they like. When the basics are secured and when the workers own their own
businesses, why not? It is the process of creation we are talking about."
Jackie, looking annoyed at Vlad's dismissals of Antar, and perhaps intending to
divert the old man, or trip him up, said, "What about the ecological aspects of this
economy that you used to emphasize?"
"They are fundamental," Vlad said. "Point three of Dorsa Brevia states that the
land, air, and water of Mars belong to no one, that we are the stewards of it for all the
future generations. This stewardship will be everyone's responsibility, but in case of
conflicts we propose strong environmental courts, perhaps as part of the constitutional
court, which will estimate the real and complete environmental costs of economic
activities, and help to coordinate plans that impact the environment."
"But this is simply a planned economy!" Antar cried.
"Economies are plans. Capitalism planned just as much as this, and
metanationalism tried to plan everything. No, an economy is a plan."
Antar, frustrated and angry, said, "It's simply socialism returned."
Vlad shrugged. "Mars is a new totality. Names from earlier totalities are deceptive.
They become little more than theological terms. There are elements one could call
socialist in this system, of course. How else remove injustice from economy? But
private enterprises will be owned by their workers rather than being nationalized, and
this is not socialism, at least not socialism as it was usually attempted on Earth. And
all the co-ops are businesses-small democracies devoted to some work of other, all
needing capital. There will be a market, there will be capital. But in our system
workers will hire capital rather than the other way around. It's more democratic that
way, more just. Understand me- we have tried to evaluate each feature of this
economy by how well it aids us to reach the goals of more justice and more freedom.
And justice and freedom do not contradict each other as much as has been claimed,
because freedom in an injust system is no freedom at all. They both emerge together.
And so it is not so impossible, really. It is only a matter of enacting a better system,
by combining elements that have been tested and shown to work. This is the moment
for that. We have been preparing for this opportunity for seventy years. And now that
the chance has come, I see no reason to back off just because someone is afraid of
some old words. If you have any specific suggestions for improvements, we'll be
happy to hear them."
He stared long and hard at Antar. But Antar did not speak; he had no specific
suggestions.