— President Montgomery at the Tri-Centennial Celebration of the Bill of Rights, 2089.
Diana, Perry, and Olga sat around a table in a small but pleasant living room. Before them were the remains of a gourmet repast. Perry was pouring wine into two tiny cups. He handed them to the women.
"Here's luck. Save the bottle and I'll finish it when I get back." The girls drank and Perry refilled their cups. "We were certainly delighted that you could come, Olga. We haven't seen enough of you this past year."
"You know that I couldn't stay away, Perry."
"Thanks." He arose and stepped to a window. It was night. A gibbous moon rode high to the south and turned the desert soil of Arizona into unearthly fairyland. "I'm glad it's a nice night. Not that it makes any real difference, but it's pleasanter." He glanced at the wall chronometer. "About an hour until meridian. We don't need to leave yet."
Olga fussed with a cigarette and broke it. "How long will you be gone, Perry?"
"A little less than twenty-four hours"
"So short a time? But the moon is so far away!"
"It's far enough, about three hundred and eighty thousand kilometers. My orbit will be about eight hundred thousand kilometers all told. But I'm going to travel pretty fast."
"How fast, Perry?"
"My average speed will be around six hundred kilometers per minute, five eight six point two to be exact. I'll be going faster on the swing around old Luna, but that is because I want to stay down low and take some pictures."
"That seems terribly fast. Won't it crush you to accelerate to such a horrible speed?"
"No, not at all. I could come up to speed in little over half an hour, using only half a 'g'. Except for the first few minutes, though, I won't even use that. I'll get a big shove in the first four minutes, then drop off my first-stage rocket entirely."
"It uses your new fuel, doesn't it?"
"Yes, it uses the picroid. I designed it after a high explosive we used to use, but I've got it controlled. We used to use the stuff it's made from, picric acid, in bombs and shells, but not in guns, because it was too fast and would split a gun wide open. But this stuff I can control and get a tremendous boost with it. When it's gone I drop off its tanks and nozzles, and so forth, and what I've got left is a fairly ordinary little rocket ship."
Diana got up from where she had been sitting and faced him. "Perry, how do you know that stuff won't go off all at once?"
He smiled tenderly. "Don't worry, honey. It hasn't yet on any tests, and it can't, or else I'm no mathematician."
Olga spoke again. "Perry, you are determined to go?"
"What do you think?"
She shook her head. "Oh, you're going all right. Oh Lord, was it for this that we re-made the world? Made it safe to rear babies? Brought sanity into the world?" She walked to the far end of the room and stood with her back to them. Perry followed her, took her by the shoulders and turned her around.
"Olga, look at me. This is what men have striven for. Economic systems are nothing, codes of customs are nothing, unless they are the means whereby man can follow his urge to fulfill himself, to search for the meaning of things, to create beauty, to seek out love. Listen to me. If there were a deadly new plague you'd go where it was, wouldn't you?"
"Yes, but that is to save people's lives."
"Don't tell me that. That is your secondary reason, your justification. You'd go in the first place to study something, to find out what made it tick."
"But your trip is so useless."
"Useless? Perhaps. But Pasteur didn't know what use there was in it when he studied one-celled life. Newton thought his calculus was a mathematical toy. I don't care whether it's useful or not, but you've no way of knowing that it won't be. All I know is that there is another face to the moon that we never see, and I'm going out there and seeing. After me someday will come a man in a better ship, who will land and walk on the moon, and come back to tell about it. Then in the next few years and centuries the human race will spread through the planets like bees swarming in the spring time—finding new homes, new ways to live, new and more beautiful things to do. I won't live to see it, but, by God, I can live long enough to show them the way.
"But I won't be killed this trip. At least I don't feel it in my bones. This time tomorrow I'll be back, and we'll all sit down to supper again." He consulted the chronometer. "Come on. It's time to go."
The reception hall of the Moon Rocket Station was crowded with people. Perry was met at the stair by the Director who kept back a crowd of excited visitors. A husky youth in greasy coveralls pushed through the mob. Perry caught his eye.
"All set, Joe?"
"All set, Master Perry." Perry clapped him on the shoulder.
"Cut out the master stuff, kid. It's soon enough when I get back. Besides you go on the next trip."
Joe smiled. "I'll hold you to that, Perry."
"Right. Now, look. You're all through, aren't you? Will you look after the girls here, and see that they get good spots to watch? Thanks." He turned back to Diana and Olga. "I'm going now. It's less than ten minutes to zero. I don't want you out on the field. Give a fellow a kiss and go." He looked around and called out, "Private sphere!" The televue scanners stopped clicking. Then he kissed each of them and they clung to him. He patted them clumsily, arm about each, then gently pulled away. The scanners picked up again. Joe led them to the observatory stairs and Perry stepped through the field lock.
Joe found them places in the observatory tower. They saw Perry in the white flood lights, moving toward his ship with a parade ground swing. The ship itself was silver in the moonlight, huge, uncouth. It rested on a cradle in which it leaned away from vertical and pointed a trifle west of meridian. Perry was climbing a ladder which scaled the framework of the cradle. He reached the manhole in the side of his rocket and slid his legs inside. Then, half seated, he looked back at the buildings and waved his right arm. Diana fancied that she could catch the glint of his smile. Then he slid inside and was gone. The port cover swung into place from inside the rocket, rotated clockwise a quarter turn, and rested.
THE END
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER IX
NOTE: This need not be read in sequence. It is included to amplify Davis' remarks in order that the reader may understand the causes of economic confusion in the early 20th century.
There is an old tale of five blind men who were taken to "see" an elephant. Each examined it as best he could, and described it in terms of his experience.
One felt a leg and said, "It is like the trunk of a tree."
One had grasped the tail and answered, "How ridiculous! It is a rope."
A third countered, "You are slightly mistaken, brother. It is somewhat like a rope, but is actually a mighty snake." He had touched the trunk.
Another ran his hand across the broad solid side of the beast and exclaimed, "How can you be so deceived? Verily, it is a wall."
The last touched the elephant not at all, but heard him trumpet. He fled, for he thought the Spirit of Death was upon him.
They were all correct insofar as their data went. Each in grasping a part of the truth had reached a different wrong conclusion.
Twentieth century economists, of whatever school, almost unanimously fell into the same sort of error. Illustrations of how they made such errors, through examining some special case of the production-consumption cycle, are set forth below:
RENT TROUBLE (The Single Tax Argument)
Use the same data as used by Perry and Davis, except:
(1) the banker spends all of his interest.
(2) the land owner does not spend his rent.
OVER-PRODUCTION: two playing cards.
Nevertheless, title to land frequently results in individuals receiving returns in rent disproportionate to investment. This is Henry George's "un-earned increment." But un-earned increment does not in itself cause over-production, and taxing it away will not balance the cycle. On the contrary, it throws it further out of balance.
Taxing un-earned increment out of existence is only a means of social readjustment.
PROFIT TROUBLE (The Socialist Argument)
Same data except:
(1) Banker spends his interest.
(2) Entrepreneur spends only two shekels.
OVER-PRODUCTION: 3 playing cards.
Same situation as above. If a concern's profits seem disproportionately high, they may be lowered by punitive taxation, but to do so will not tend to balance the cycle, unless shekel for shekel (or dollar for dollar) an equal amount of money is given away to someone who will spend it.
LABOR TROUBLE (The Conservative Argument)
Using the same data, but with banker spending all the interest, run two cycles side by side. Let the additional cycle suffer from labor trouble, the workers striking for high wages, and winning the strike. Let the additional labor cost be 31.5 shekels. Necessary price of cards will be 2.5 shekels per card in this cycle. But the other cycle can sell to the same market at 2 shekels per card. No matter what the final market price, both cycles will have overproduction, or the second cycle will fail to obtain a return equal to cost, or both.
Results:
(a) Market price 2 shekels, 1st cycle balances, 2nd cycle sells all its goods, but is insolvent by 31.5 shekels.
(b) Market price 2 1/2 shekels, combined over-production is 15.75 playing cards.
DUMPING FROM ABROAD (The High Tariff Argument)
Using the same data, place on the market from another cycle with lower costs of any sort, especially labor, playing cards to sell at one shekel. Our entrepreneur is forced to cut prices and goes broke. Orthodox solution, XXth century: protective tariff. Rational solution: Cease to manufacture the type of articles being dumped on us, and pay for them with our currency. We gain the increment in real wealth.
INTEREST (The Anti-Semitic Argument)
There is an element of truth to this argument—that interest not spent as purchasing power unbalances the cycle. The illustration given in the narrative is proof of this. And there were undoubtedly many Jews in the banking business, though by no means a majority. Yet somehow on this slender pedestal, an incredible structure of half-truths and outright falsehoods was constructed many times in history to 'prove' that Jewry was engaged in a conspiracy to enslave the rest of mankind. It is difficult for us, in the enlightened 21st century, to realize that this preposterous myth was the cause of torture, mass murder, and an endless number of vicious acts of racial discrimination.
MONOPOLY (The Trust-Buster's Argument)
This problem should be set up in three ways, monopoly of raw materials, monopoly of technique, and monopoly of a field of enterprise. In each case modify the data to cause the holder of the monopoly to (a) receive too large returns (b) freeze out a competitor.
Monopoly of raw materials is contrary to public interest. The state must exercise its right of control or expropriation to prevent it.
Monopoly of technique is now limited to the royalty rights of the inventor, but in former times the owner of a technique was legally able to monopolize it entirely, even to the extent of neither using it, nor allowing others to use it.
Monopoly of a field of enterprise, where it is not based on the other types of monopoly, usually indicates greater efficiency and should be controlled in the public interest rather than eliminated. We now believe that the interest of the consuming public is paramount. It was formerly held that the interests of the little businessman were paramount. This point of view is roughly equivalent to that of the machine breakers at the beginning of the industrial revolution in the 19th century.
It is obvious that natural causes alone are sufficient to destroy a big business which serves the public less efficiently than a small business, all other things being equal.
The above illustrations, while by no means exhaustive, show the type of error into which our forefathers fell. In each case, the proponents of the above-listed arguments took a special case of the production-consumption equation and treated it as if it were the general case. In each case they were right—as far as they went—but by assuming their special case to be the general case, their conclusions were invariably fallacious.
For comparison with 20th century economies the problem set up by Perry and Davis will now be worked as an illustration of the general case of the production-consumption cycle, applying the modern method of the dividend-discount for balancing the cycle.
Total cost of product: 126 shekels
Number of units (playing cards): 63 shekels
Assume that holders of purchasing power refrain from spending 26 shekels. Therefore, if the government issues a total of 13 shekels as a dividend, and authorizes a discount of 13.126 or approximately 10%, the spread between production and consumption will be eliminated. Capitalization of the country will be increased by 26 shekels and production will be greater in the next fiscal period, thereby increasing the real wealth of the country.
This problem must be worked out with the chessmen, or their equivalent, to be appreciated. This type of problem is worked out in more detail on page 171.
The invention of the discount method of preventing inflation is usually attributed to C.E. Douglas, a Scottish economist of the early 20th century.
AFTERWARD
"A Clean Sweep."
Fifty years before Robert Heinlein's death in 1988, he wrote For Us, The Living, his first novel.
Like many writers, Heinlein found himself repeatedly answering the same questions. In particular, "How did you get published?" His polished tale went like this: He had lost a political campaign in 1938, and faced a mortgage and no prospects of employment. He saw a contest in Thrilling Wonder Stories offering $50 for science fiction stories from unpublished authors and decided he would give it a try. In four days of April 1939, he wrote his first story, "Life-Line"—and decided it was good enough to submit to the top market of the day, John W. Campbell's Astounding Science Fiction. Campbell bought it, and Heinlein never went back to what he called "honest work."
But as James Gifford has pointed out in Robert A. Heinlein: A Reader's Companion (Nitrosyncretic Press, 2000), the story is not quite that simple. There was indeed a writing contest, but in the October 1938 Thrilling Wonder Stories. However, there was no $50 prize; instead, it was a call for submissions, at the normal word rates. Future great science fiction writer Alfred Bester won that contest and had his first story printed in the April 1939 issue, when Heinlein was just starting "Life-Line"—which shows another flaw in the polished myth: the contest was already publicly won before Heinlein even began his intended submission.
Bester never had a single story rejected by any editor or publisher—but Heinlein did.
In fact, Heinlein faced a number of rejections. His second sale to Campbell, "Misfit," was accepted only with revisions, and Campbell rejected six of his next stories, one right after another. Those six rejections accelerated a learning process into writing the kind of science fiction Campbell would buy. And before Astounding, even before For Us ,The Living, Heinlein had tasted literary rejection. When he was in the navy, serving on the aircraft carrier Lexington, he had entered a short story in a shipboard writing contest. "Weekend Watch," a little tale of espionage and intrigue at the Naval Academy, still survives in the Heinlein archives at UC Santa Cruz.
Heinlein lost that contest.
Perhaps his most significant rejection came before he wrote "Life-Line." He had already written a complete novel: For Us, The Living, which was rejected first by Macmillan, who kept it for some time, and then by Random House, who returned it after only a month in June of 1939.
Precisely when the novel was written is a matter for scholarly conjecture, but the general date is fixed in a letter Heinlein wrote to Campbell on December 18, 1939: "A year ago I wrote a full length novel." That places the window of composition between August 1938, when Heinlein lost his bid for California State Assembly, and April 1939, when he wrote "Life-Line." In August 1934, Heinlein returned to California with his second w
ife, Leslyn, from a long hospital treatment for the tuberculosis that ended his naval career (Heinlein had a very brief first marriage in the late twenties). He briefly sat in on classes at UCLA—he was never formally enrolled there, nor did he ever audit classes officially—and he soon realized that he would not be able to afford postgraduate study, even if he could surmount the fact that Annapolis granted no undergraduate degrees at that time, making it difficult, if not impossible, to convince UCLA to admit him to graduate school.
Fortunately, in the fall of 1934, Heinlein encountered something far more exciting than running an academic obstacle course. Upton Sinclair is best known today for the 1906 muckraking novel The Jungle. In 1934, he was also known for a whole series of novels and books crusading for socialism and radical change—and for running for California governor as a member of the Socialist Party. For the 1934 campaign, he had left the Socialist Party for the Democratic ticket. Sinclair's crusade electrified the nation, and terrorized the Republican Party, which had long been accustomed to controlling California. Robert Heinlein became deeply involved in Sinclair's Utopian vision for California: End Poverty in California, better known as EPIC.
EPIC was one of the many plans put forward by various American political figures to solve the problems of the Great Depression, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal; Huey P. Long's Share the Wealth (tax the rich 100 percent after their first million dollars of income, then redistribute the wealth to everyone else); Dr. Francis Townsend's Old Age Revolving Pension Plan (give senior citizens $200 a month); and the Technocracy movement (put engineers and scientists in charge of society). FDR curtailed many of these movements by co-opting their best ideas. He raised the income tax on the rich to disarm Share the Wealth's appeal and instituted Social Security in 1935 to supplant Dr. Townsend.
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