{ } = word or expression can't be understood
{word} = hard to understand, might be this

(Philosophy 9, November 20th, 1953.)

...a very pertinent question whether the -- we would be able, so to speak, to go on with this system, whether we wouldn't be leading up to self-destruction.

So let me go back -- I think that's a very pertinent question -- over the same ground from the simple point of view of the relation of war and peace. We have discovered that peace is something, as you'll remember, concluded between men. And before you get the peasantry, you get just the migration of tribes. You get the Polynesians here, or you get the migration of tribes. Peace is an inter- -- interval between two war paths, when the booty, the spoils are, so to speak, feeding the community, giv- -- give the- -- them the surplus, you see, which they had at home, in their garden, in the -- from the to- -- turkey, white turkey, or from the corn that was raised in 90 days during the summer time. Because they had some such cultivation. You must not think that primitive man didn't try to have an economy. Only he didn't dare to have an economy. And perhaps you'll take a starting point. In the -- before our era, gentlemen, in the endeavor of peace, of having peace and having an economy of peace was there, but there was nothing to enlarge the peace while there is peace. You have war. You have spoils. You have some fruits. You have some hunting grounds. You have some deer. And you shoot this up, and then you try again to go out. But with the peasantry of Europe in the Middle Ages, under the scepter of the Church, you have a peace-enlarging economy.

So let us put this -- these five stages very clearly on the blackboard: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. You have crudely speaking -- it isn't quite true that -- I think we didn't try hard to keep peace. But we had an alternation of war and peace in which the peacetime economy is, so to speak -- is fed on spoils. Well, you have heard of the spoils system with Mr. Jackson. It is very similar. As you know, the Republicans at this moment are trying to make the -- find spoils, so they dismiss Mr. {Aston} or they dismiss Mr. {Hobbe}, you see, and the -- then they are very sorry, because we have -- going obviously to give -- we have to give up the spoils system for the governing party. But the spoils system is the last remnant of a primitive economy in which you make war on some opponent, take away his -- his income, his -- his -- his plums, and eat them yourself.

And it is very barbarous and every primitive, but we won't -- shouldn't be afraid to say we are very primitive. And the spoils system is the last remnant of a kind of conquest, you see, by which you increase your income during the following peace period. And obviously that is literally true. I mean, you must not shrink

from this comparison. Only in old days, when the Franks and the -- and the Angle- -- Saxons fought, they took of course the crown of the king and the diamond, and the gold, his whole treasure, you see, and divided it between the soldiers who had been at war. And so they lived -- happily hereafter until they had eaten up this gold, or gambled it away -- which they do on the race track in New York all the time. And so the Franks had to go to war again. Well, we -- poor -- the poor -- the poor {Ryan}. What -- what are the {Ryans} going to do nex- -- tomorrow, you see? They have nothing -- no spoils anymore. No gravy.

This system, gentlemen, is not forgotten. When you have this -- relation, gentlemen, the next peace is always fed on the spoils to the victor. But that's pagan. I would say that an economy which in no way tries to increase the peace is not an economy that deserves the -- name. The- -- that's a spendthrift economy. It's -- it is not wasteful. We haven't -- wouldn't have to say this. But it is mindless, heedless of the future.

Therefore gentlemen, the four -- the three economies which then come afterwards: peasant economy, artist -- artisan economy, and worker economy; these three, which end with these two world wars, as I see it, and which fill the year in Europe to -- down to 1100, as I told you, of course, this year is still arbitrary, 1600 -- well, it's the time of the Crus- -- not quite arbitrary, it's the Crusades, you see. The Crusades were a sign that the old economy no longer worked. You see, they had to go out and try to find -- make spoils. So I'm quite -- pretty good on my dates, my dear man. And here, the two world wars -- let's put these here, 1945; these economies, gentlemen, do one thing. By the tension between the engineer and the workers, and the tension between the artist and the craftsman, and the tension between the hermit who goes out into an -- into the danger zone, you see, and encourages people to go in there and follow him, with the peasants -- we have a peace-increasing economy. Peace-increasing. This is, so to speak, the { }, that's the spoils system. Spoils economy.

That is, wa- -- eco- -- people are encouraged to settle down in peace, because they haven't only their own hunting ground, and their own berries, a few berries, but they have the spoils from the last war, you see. So they settle down. This is what we have, however, as a faithful economy, as an economy which attempts to increase the margin of peacetime. That is first a peasant economy, because it takes up new land all the time. Peace is increased because new land is taken up more and more. The clearing. Well, you know it here. Our -- we have to proceed it -- out West, to get more people to settle there. But in the old country, it was just the same, I told you. All the non-lands, the valueless lands, the bush, the -- was taken up, the hilltops, et cetera, by these people who said, "There is still a margin, you see, into which we can proceed, before we, so to speak, starve."

And therefore I told you we have this increase in population which is so tremendous, already under this peace-increasing economy. Peace-increasing, let us call it, gentlemen. I have my good reasons why I -- we need this. You see, this is an attempt to go beyond Karl Marx, and be- - beyond Ricardo, beyond the capitalistic and the Marxian theory of economics, which exclusively deal with management and worker, and fi- -- cap- -- capital, but which have never seen this -- this leadership princi- -- pro- -- problem: that you have to have a type who goes into the unknown, into this land, where there is expectation of making more money, and making more profits, you see. Now in this time, it's the land. The peace is increased by taking up new land. In the artisan economy, it is increase of division of labor. That is, more skills. Also a peace-increasing society. Ja?

(It seems to me that in -- in your peasant economy of taking up new land, frequently it might be the cases in the frontier; you're driving off the Indians, and then you're only living on the spoils of war.)

But that wasn't the case. These were fortifications, as I told you. The fear had held people down -- had -- had had -- you -- you do not -- you see, when you take Vermont, here, the -- as long as the Canadians lived under French rule, and here were the Anglo-Saxon settlers, it was found profitable from the military point of view to have your furthermost settlement in Charleston, you -- as you may know, in New Hampshire. And the first settlement beyond -- at the -- on the Richelieu River. And there was this tacit understanding that this no-man's land should be used for military purposes, Sir. It isn't a question of an enemy population. I do not -- have not -- we omit this, at this moment, you see, this driving out of the Indians. The fact is that it is used for a non-economic purpose, for security reason. Economy, which tries to increase peace, is able to disarm to a certain extent, you see. This country of which we are speaking here in the Middle Ages was the forest, the -- the no-man's land around every little settlement.

If you take an Indian today, an Algonquin Indian, he wants to live so that he doesn't see, he doesn't smell, he doesn't feel that there is a neighbor, you see, who -- as far as his eyes go, because he can't go to sleep as long as he thinks that within the same night somebody might invade it. You see this? That's the -- I mean, your point of view is perfectly legitimate. There have also been these -- these wars for -- for annihilation of whole peoples, you see. But that's not -- that's an eternal thing from the beginning. It has nothing to do with the steps economy has taken to increase its peace -- margin. Don't you think? That's a question of war -- on the -- of what I am not speaking this moment. Are you -- are you satisfied?

After all, we are now trying to find the ways by which humanity, as we see it today on his very laborious march, has tried to increase its margin of peace.

Yes? So -- of course if you take 2 billion people and take the heads of 1 billion of these people, as Mr. Hitler, and Mr. Saud are perfectly willing to do, and have done, actually, you seemingly can increase your productivity, because your product may go around longer, but doesn't. It has shown that in numbers the problem of economy is not to be found, you see. It's very funny. This country, I think, would be much better off with 300 million people living here. It isn't clear -- clear to me at all that this country is better off with 160 million people { }, you see. I don't believe it.

We need home markets. We don't -- the less we are dependent on -- on foreign, the better it would be. Therefore, 300 million people here can be easily -- very well supported, because we would have greater markets for everything if you have these more people. We just haven't thought on this line, that we are -- for the last 30 years, as you know, we have had this -- this spinster statistic, that America must grow older, and must grow -- stay thinly populated{ }. This country is, you see, very much -- read Mr. {Foch's}'s books, and Mr. Osborne's book. This country is -- against fertility. It's a- -- against fecundity. It's -- it is only for mech- -- mechanisms. Therefore the -- to generate more people has never appealed here to the -- imagination. Very strange why it is. But this country is not a -- has no fruitful thinking {in its inhabitants}. It's all mechanical thinking. Therefore everybody shrinks from large immigration. And they say you can't -- we can't do it. I mean, I think it's very short-sighted. The Australians by -- no -- no, they did exactly as we did, the Australians, you see. And now they have the rabbits instead.

{Now}, let me first finish this, Sir, and then come with your question, if you don't mind. You see, the -- there, now you understand why capitalism is a special economy. And I want to draw your attention to this, that I'm asking you to see capitalism as one, as I have asked you to see the worker as one, of the economic types of history. Because we'll see that we no longer live under the capitalistic system, in a minute. And that's what I wanted to show you. That is your question, Mr. {Conway}. Where is he? You see?

We already, since the two world wars, have definitely stepped over into another economy. Because from 1600, gentlemen, to these two world wars, the economy has been a market-seeking economy. A market-seeking economy. That is, we have said, with our mass production, with our steam engines, with our railroads, we can tap prescientific markets. We can go and sell toys to the people in S- -- South Russia.

And we can sel- -- sell, as I actually have known the man who did it, a Jewish firm in Berlin used to sell all the -- all the cheap saints to Spain, to the good Catholic peasants in Spain. They produce them in a Jewish -- in a Protes-

tant country made by a Jewish firm, all the pictures of the saints in Spain. And of course they were so cheap, so incredibly cheap that they could compete -- outcompete, you see, and kill all the local producers in Spain. And capitalism lives on a -- an old way of producing things, which, you see, can be taken over if the man in Berlin produced one of these little leaflets, you see, with a saint -- I mean, Saint Ignatius, or Santa Teresa, of Ab‚lard, or one of these wonderful people, they had -- this cost them perhaps one and a -- one -- one cent. And the Spaniards were accustomed to paying I don't know what the Spanish currency -- peseta?

(Peso.)

Wie?

(Peso.)

Peso. Yes, peso -- one whole peso probably for it, you see, which would be like a quarter.

So in -- an income capitalist entrepreneur, and for the first year, it were -- he has no competition where he discovers this new market, he can drive out the local painter, the craftsman who -- who designed and painted this by hand, and can sell this leaflet, this -- this sheet, let us say, for one peso. So his profit is very considerable. It is, since he is -- he has no -- only one cent to pay, you see, he makes 24 cents. Then he has to come -- lower his price, perhaps, and can't send it -- sell it for a quarter, becau- -- in comes competition. He has to sell it for 20 cents, or 15 cents, or 10 cents, 15 cents. Once he has so many competitors that one man comes and offers it to sell for 1 cent and-a-half, the whole market begins to close, you see, to clog, because there is no profit anymore. And that is the end of the capitalistic system in this -- in the field of Spanish icons, or Spanish saints, you see. For saints, for capitalists, for factoring man -- manufacturer. He is done for. His margin of profit, you see, has shrunk. Do you see this?

Now what I have tried to show you is, gentlemen...

[tape interruption]

...against your expectation, the older economies were also able to make profits. But they did not make profits by exploiting older markets, previous markets, you see. Local markets. They were not a market-seeking society. But they were a skill-improving society by increasing the division of labor between the crafts. And before, they were a land-taking, a land-increasing society. But the profit motive was of course -- acted in all these societies, with the same urgency.

And it is not true that the capitalistic system is an especially greedy socie- -- system. I don't believe this for a minute. The people were just as greedy before in matters of land, as they were just as greedy in matters of better organization of guilds and crafts. And you see the documents of the Middle Ages. Of course, these people, they all -- we all have to make a living. And they try to provide for their children and -- and -- and grandchildren, and for their wives, and for their brides, and for their daughters. And it was all -- a -- not a money-making, but a surplus-making society, of course. But the surplus came from a different imagination.

If you are led by an artist, you see, what you do -- try to do is to increase the efficiency by greater skill. Obviously when you build a cathedral, you can invoke, and I told you about the armor of a knight, if you have 185 people doing this, you see, the war industry of the Middle Ages largely were the cavalry of the course of the knighthood, which served as airplane, as tank, as -- as wireless, as radio. I mean, they had to -- the knights had to do all these things. They had to -- take the messages. They had to deliver the -- the attack. And they themselves were -- couldn't be hurt. They were invulnerable, you see, by their armor.

Now obviously if you have 185 such people needed for the security of the country as we have now -- allocate $40 billion, you see. And you have 185 people producing every one of them, let us say for two months, armor, you have a surplus of energy for 10 months a year, you see, to produce goods of a higher type. And so in this sense, the skills made for a surplus. {But} gentlemen, this organization was still very steady. The imagination of a medieval mind was still concerned with making a living for a lifetime. Nobody was fired on -- at the end of a working day. There were no laborers actually in the medieval cities. That once a worker -- once a handyma- a crafts- -- usually a craftsman, always a craftsman. You had a lifetime tenure, a lifetime position. And I -- if you would think this over, the skill increasingly economy is as reasonable in economy -- an economy as a market-seeking economy.

Capitalism increases markets. Feudalism, as you well may call it, you see, incle- -- increases skills, and monasticism increases land. The increase is that which -- which preoccupies the thinking of the times, of the people, and therefore you find in the old documents the urgency of the old profit motive, not expressed in money, because it is not market-seeking, but in having more cities founded. I mean, you numbered the wealth of medieval Rothschild, or a medieval Mellon, or a medieval Rockefeller by the numbers of towns which he would found. We have pe- -- like the Habsburgs. The Habsburgs made their fortune by founding one town after another in Switzerland, and later in Austria. And we have documents. Or -- I have seen myself such a Habsburg town which was just as much a failure as today a ghost town can be. Not all these towns prospered.

You mustn't think this. This was risky business, you see. And we have one town that never developed over more than a Sun Street and a Shadow Street. That is, there were two streets intersecting, you see, which -- one caught the sunshine, and the other was oblique, I mean, slanting against them, and therefore it was called "the street in the shade." And this whole little town -- it's still worth your while look at it, if you ever get there, near the Boden See, consisted of these two streets. Never prospered, never was a profitable enterprise, but is still standing, because of the conservatism of medieval economy -- economics, you see. But it -- I would say it was a financial failure, from the part of the count of Habsburgs, the la- -- lord of the city, who tried to organize some guild and crafts in this place.

Only I warn you. You have to look into the history with open eyes and see if your -- if a factory today cannot pay its interest rate to the bank, it goes bankrupt, in the Middle Ages, the town would not pay dividends to the landlord, if it -- if -- if his ma- -- -- if his foundations -- the foundations proved unsound. And the same is true if you went to the highest mountains in -- for example, again in Switzerland, or in France, in the Auvergne, and tried to have a -- a rotation of crops in the snow of the Maritime Alps, of course, there was no profit. These people just couldn't make a living. You find many regions in Ger- -- in Germany, in France, and Sweden that have been settled, but they are submarginal. They -- they just don't pay dividends.

You have always this attempt to do right on your own principle, slipshod, I mean, against all probability to do the utmost, as we have today so many chimneys built in vain, and they are going bankrupt, and you find a ghost town. The history of economics in the Middle Ages and in antiquity is also strewn with failures. But it isn't expressed in going bankrupt by -- you see, to the moneychangers. But it is that the -- the military enterprise here of this -- of the Habsburg was there. They just didn't get the war industry going, which they hoped would support their army. And feed themselves, so to speak.

The second thing I want to bring to your attention or -- about the unity: that these things led one to the next. The greatest painter of Germany, and he really com- -- compete with his contemporaries Michelangelo, and Raphael in Italy was Grnewald, Matthias Grnewald, who has painted the famous altar of Isenheim, near Colmar in the Alsace. If you ever come to France, or Europe at all, you must not miss it. It's the greatest painting, I think, before the Reformation. That -- it already is in a musical vein. It is no longer Italian art. It's -- it's like Shakespeare before Cromwell, you see, the -- before Milton. It's a -- it's a -- the -- greater than Italian painting, but already in a new {lination} that will -- is later going to have Bach, and Beethoven, and Mozart instead, and not go in for painting. Who has seen the Grnewald altar? I mean, in -- in reproductions? Nobody

has? Oh, you barbarians. For the last 50 years, it has been all over the place. I mean, it is the most famous -- under discussion for the last 50 years. Have you never heard of it? Isenheimer Altar by Mathe- -- Ma- -- Matthias Grnewald. That's interesting. Well, they aren't in the wilderness. Not one of you?

(How do you spell that -- that man?)

(G-r-u-n-e...)

(Oh, yeah. I remember that.)

Does it come to mind? Oh, you can also cut this out. You see, it's arbitrary spelling. It's like Shakespeare with e-a or with e-r-e, you see. Nobody knows. Grnewald. Ba- -- and his first name is Matthias. How interesting. Who -- is nobody here majoring in art? Is anybody minoring in art? No? How interesting. You have never seen this picture? The colors of this picture are are quite something. They are really in the transition from the -- from the color to sound. The -- you feel that in the next minute, this must become music. And so it did. Germany went over and -- as you know, with the Reformation, to using music as its medium, as its art, instead of vision. So it's a very important -- it's exactly -- the place that in your tradition that Shakespeare plays before the Puritans come in, the same role is played in Germany before Luther comes by Grnewald's painting. So it's a very important thing. It has the same wealth, the same richness, diversity, the same scale of emotion this -- this -- these -- these pictures of Grnewald as Shakespeare has, which you compare your own boredom to the variety of his comedies and his tragedies. And it's very hard for you to understand that any Anglo-Saxon ever had this latitude. When you now look at -- see any Englishman, he has just no latitude. He's just quiet. But -- Shakespeare has this -- this tremendous, as you know, keyboard, I mean -- endless, with his 24,000 words.

And in the same sense, you must understand Grnewald at that time -- was the transition from artist, gentlemen, to technician. When the Reformation came, he fell in with the peasants, and he lost his position as painter of the Archbishop of Mainz. And he became a technician. He became the water -- or how would you say? -- the pump master, the builder of the waterworks of the -- one of the cities of this same archbishop of Magdeburg -- of Magdeburg.

So in the life of this man actually, the transition from the medieval, you see, society to the capitalist society occurs. He died in 1529, and -- didn't -- didn't want to paint anymore after the war of the {peasants}. He said that had been abused for these damned archbishops and bishops, you see, with all their corruption. And it was just because he had been such a great painter, that very much

like Prospero in The Tempest, he says, "My witchcraft is over. I'm no longer going to paint." And what does he become? This artist becomes the technician who builds pumps, who builds waterworks. What you understand today, you see, by what we call physics broke -- broke out in the 16th century by the need for waterworks in the mines and in the cities, especially also in the mines of the Fugger, the great ore -- ore -- the digging of the ore in the -- in the Styria, for example, which made the first capitalistic organization inevitable.

So there is a definite transition directly from the artisan society to the technician, to the technological society, which comes in with the idea of concentrated production and -- in the capitalistic system, the market-seeking society. Because these first mines, which needed these pumps, you see, to ge- -- throw out the -- the water -- you may -- you remember James Watts also invented a lamp for these mines, a safety lamp. These mines were the first capitalistic enterprises in -- in the world, because these mines couldn't produce for the local market, you see. They had to -- they were so highly specialized, if you have mine production, you have to sell it in faraway places. Mining is always the mother of -- of transport, of course, and everything that goes with it.

Now you'll understand when I -- make things a little more difficult and say, "All these three economies co-exist." There are -- it is true that from 400 to 1100, from 1100 to 1600, from 1600 to 1953, one is in the lead. But obviously there have been skills in this country down to the Fren- -- to the American Revolution. Paul Revere was a wonderful silversmith. And that, I think, was much better than his cavalry. And you have even some craftsmanship in this country at this moment. But it is very poor. And is decaying.

We have this wonderful Swedish woman here in this town, and her sister who tried to weave, but they couldn't make a living, so she's now working in Emil's camera shop. She's back again. But she does still some weaving of the 16th-century weaving type in Sweden. Have you -- who knows her? Well, you don't know the interesting people in this town. They belong to another society, however. They belong to the -- an economy which is based on the skills, and -- and arts and the crafts. And you know, people try to revive this at this moment.

Now that certainly comes from a precapitalistic order of things. And if you look at my Multiformity of Man, I have tried to remind you that this is still the -- the type of life on which capitalism has been living, by expanding its markets into these districts. And this good Swedish woman is a case in point. I mean, she still came here with the illusion that her high craftsmanship, you see, would feed her. But since she couldn't in- -- enter -- upon mass production, she is now in transition, and she has now a paid job as an employee in a -- in a store. So she has something -- just job, and no skill.

But these -- these economies must always co-exist. Gentlemen, they -- you can put the emphasis on one of these economies, but do not believe that any one society can live absolutely exclusively on one. There has never been and never will be a society as in the Middle Ages which didn't have to produce some silver for coins -- and gold.

Now that was always a capitalistic business in the 12th century. In the 12th century, gentlemen, the pope, and the bishops, and the lords all competed for the silver mines in Czechoslovakia. Bohemia has becomes so -- an important -- the heart of Europe as everybody in Europe know -- only the Americans didn't, so they went out of it -- and withdrew their -- their troops in -- in 1945, unfortunately. But who -- he who has Bohemia has Europe. That's an old saying, and Bohemia is just what you call today with the wrong name, "Czechoslovakia." But Bo- -- the heart of Europe -- because it had silver, and it had gold. And the coining was done in those mines there. They have also of course many other things. It's one of the most fruitful parts of Europe. And we have just given this away for a song to Mr. Stalin, as you know, because we -- we had a change of president.

And that's -- you see, that is the whole reason of our { }. We could live very well with the Russians if we did- -- if they didn't have Bohemia. And Saxony, with the big mining district. In Saxony -- have all the uranium they need, as you know, for their bombs, and we don't. And in -- in -- in Czechoslovakia, they have all these natural resources, and the -- and the military central position in Europe besides. And this we have given away without any reason. They didn't ask for it. They have just presented it them -- the Americans, against the warnings of Mr. Churchill, on a silver platter. Only to show you how necessary it is sometimes to know a little more about -- about the past in economics. Just in economics.

Because these cap- -- early capitalism prevailed in Bohemia. It's the earliest capitalistic country in the world -- of Europe. And again, I need not tell you that some of the elements of permanent settlement signify, even in this country, especially in the South, or in the middle country. And although now the farms are going out of existence, there is still some sentiment attached to the fact that this country has been settled. And now it becomes unsettled, and it has quite some difficulties to live in a country that is no longer settled.

So, will you kindly understand that land, skill, and markets are eternal ways of economizing, of increasing the peace. And you cannot afford to divide history in this artificial manner and say, "This is o- -- old and obsolete, and this is now the type we do today."

Gentlemen, capitalism, feudalism, and hermitism or however you call it,

they are equally obsolete today, all three. And they are equally inevitable today as partial solutions. That is, you can no longer afford to say there is one economy, one type of economy. You have to admit simply -- I tried to -- to show you, and I think it's in the pamphlet too, that it is a mania to believe because there is one god, there must also be one economy. One god and many economies. That's how God created the universe. It's ridiculous! I mean, how can anybody be a capitalist, and how can anybody be a socialist or anybody a communist, only a monomaniac can be this who mistakes the unity of the divine government and the creation of the universe with his hobby and says, "My hobby is the only way of running things." This is -- no American is made for this. Every American knows that if there is one way of doing things, there is alt- -- another way, too.

So I -- I think the -- only answer to Communism is that there is no panacea in economics. There are innumerable ways of doing things. The earlier you wake up to this, the more you can laugh off all these issues. Communism is for a normal person not an issue, because it wants to idolize one way of doing things. And how can any normal person think that this earthly matter should be treated in one way only? God is one, and you are many, and the elements of the earth are an infinity -- an infinity. And every one thing has to be taken care of in a different manner. Money has to be treated in one way, and electricity has been treated in another way. And the farm has to be -- garden has to be treated in another way. It wouldn't be good to have a -- a flower garden in the hands of 10,000 people, as a cooperative, you see. But it's no reason why the atom bomb -- you see, should be given to the government to be treated, because such an acs- -- concentration of power as it -- needed there, you see, could -- you couldn't entrust to a priv- -- a private person. Wh- -- where there is a decision between socialism and capitalism, you see, the one thing is: my private garden, that's mine, you see; and the shoe factory, that's a share company, with -- with -- because I need $500,000 capital. And for the atom bomb, I need $5 billion, and this cannot be done by private means.

Gentlemen, the sooner you wake up to the fact of pluralism -- which was the great religion, as you know, of William James, the greatest American thinker -- in material things, the more you find your way back to a peacetime world. Gentlemen, I -- I think I told you the story of my visit in Greenfield, did I? When the people there from New York -- I had a forum in Greenfield, which is quite an industrial, little, well- -- well-working community, halfway, as you know, down to -- towards New York, and there were some New Yorkers in the discussion. They said, "Well, we have to go to war, otherwise we won't have 60 million jobs." This was already two years ago.

And so the -- as you see, my plea with you for a peace-increasing economy is most justified, because these good capitalists, you see, felt that now capitalism

had no markets anymore in Persia, or in Egypt to hope for, you see, and therefore we have to go to war. That is, once the increase of one principle of economics, you see, is no longer feasible, the people go to war. I said, "You are mad, you are insane," I told these people.

"Well," they said, "What do you mean? We -- we have -- we can't ma- -- we can't make any gains. We have to go to war."

And perhaps you have forgotten it, but all the good peop- -- so-called good people in this country had the same insanity two years ago. And you could hear it everywhere: that we have to go into a war, because otherwise we could not keep up prosperity. Have you forgotten it? Or do you still remember it? Well, all these people of course is -- should have been shot, or one at least, of them, because that well might have wakened them up out of their scandalous behavior. Now they all vote Republican, these same people.

They are warmongers of the worst kind. And they are not warmongers of the superficial kind, but they are the people who are the slaves of one way of doing things, and when there is not this one way anymore, there isn't -- no, Sir. This is too serious at this moment. I -- you -- I -- you must -- I come to the fifth economy, gentlemen. I come to Mr. {Collins'} question of questions. I come to the question: is there now a change between capitalism and the future? Is -- I think there is, definitely. I think we get a warlike economy. The next economy, in which we are already in, is trying to use the principles of warfare for peacetime production. This is very serious, gentlemen, because there are no markets, which you can dissolve, of a preindustrial caliber -- hard to speak of, you see.

There is -- once an American businessman wrote a book, 400 Million Customers. Has anybody read the book? Well, it was the pr- -- prescribed reading at Tuck School a few years ago. 400 Million Customers. Who were the 400 million customers? Can you imagine? It was an attempt to show the American tobacco industry how to acquaint the poor Chinese with tobacco and how to make them smoke cigarettes; 400 million customers. That's the typical market-seeking society, where --. The last raid -- the last raid of this type of American imperialism has been Coca-Cola, as you know. The poor people in Egypt and in Switzerland now have to drink Coca Cola instead of coffee now. It's true. It's just incredible.

At the day -- when Farouk had his birthday while I was in Egypt, 300,000 bottles of Coca-Cola were given free to the poor in -- Cairo by the firm to introduce Coca-Cola. And out went the coffee. So far, when you came to any man in Egypt for -- any errand, you first, before you could talk business, you took your -- had your nice cup of coffee. And now what do you think? I never drink CocaCola, now. I go to { } to drink Coca-Cola. So I don't go there anymore.

Well, that's a typical raid -- a market -- can you see this? -- market-seeking. There is coffee so far established, coming from Mocha, in Arabia, and now it's Coca-Cola. And therefore this mass production of course does away with the caravan routes, bringing the coffee from Mecca by ship, and through the desert on camels to -- to Egypt. And on this disrupture of old trade, the new trade bases its marginal profit. As soon as there is no competition anymore, as everybody wants to -- to drink Coca-Cola, in comes Pepsi-Cola, and -- and -- and we die from their competition, because finally it will not pay anymore, either one.

So gentlemen, what is left? You want me to -- to stop here. The fifth economy, gentlemen, {with} which we have to deal is obviously the result of two world wars in which there are no extra-mundane markets. What the world wars have done is to unify the market. That is, to make the market so known, that the customer knows everything about supply. There is nobody in Malaya who has not an inkling now where he might buy it. You see, he can buy in India; he can buy in Germany; he can buy in England. As you know, all the Arab states now buy in Germany, because they hate the English. And -- because the markets and the supply of the markets is known. The word "world" means the publication of your opportunities in trading.

And therefore, there is no longer an unknown market where the Berlin firm can come first with -- the Spaniards now know that they -- before they buy in Berlin, they may better write a postcard to New York, and ask for a different price, a different quotation, you see. Therefore, you can no longer ambush and raid these people, you see. The -- the only people who can still be raided and ambushed are college professors or students in Dartmouth -- in Hanover. But we of course are at the mercy of the monopolies in this town. As you know, the -- the college supply store is owned by the two other people in town, so that there can be no competition.

Thank you.

[tape interruption]

...believe me, it is a fact that can, even by Mr. Toynbee, be accepted: that in all 23 civilizations which he describes, people always had to eat. That is, economy is not to be identified with capitalism. You try- -- seem to think so. Some questions I was asked lead me to think that you are so stupid, because of your reading of newspapers, that you believe that so far man has produced capitalistically, and later on he's -- I don't know how to produce, and there is then the threat of Communism.

Gentlemen, this is nonsense. Capitalism is that trend in our economy

which is market-seeking. That is, whereas in a craft, a master only works, produces when he's ordered an armor, or ordered a Madonna to paint -- the artist, you see -- or ordered to build a cathedral, as all craftsmen in the old guilds and crafts wait until somebody says, "Make me a pair of shoes," the capitalist produces first and then tries to find people who buy it. That's a market-seeking economy, because you produce -- you out-produce the other, in the hope to run him out of the -- out of town, by undermining his market and taking it away from him. Can't you see this? This is a very clear principle, and it obviously pertains only to a very limited part of the economy of 1850 or 1950. That is, this country have -- course -- never been a capitalistic country. It has been a country that has built up capitalism, but gentlemen, that's quite something different. If I feel free to introduce capitalism. I'm of course not a capitalist, but I'm an inventor of capitalism. I'm superior to capitalism. I can just as well dismiss it. I can mitigate it. The people in 1800 -- in 1700 were not capitalists. They were colonialists, or whatever. The -- the British crown tried here to run this -- ja?

(Sir, are -- are you not mistaking the definition of capitalism, and that is -- using one tool to produce something else, for the aspect of capitalism which is competition?)

I have said "market-seeking." The conditions of market-seeking are very complicated. They can be landing in an island in Kuwait, and taking the oil concession there, as the British do; or there can be a contract with Ibn Saud of Arabia, you see, as we have done with the -- Aramco. There are innumerable ways. Competitions is only one part of it. Competition is subordinate to the ma- -- main question that I can produce more than I have been asked to produce. I offer. That's capitalism, Sir. And you can believe me that I have given it quite some thought. And that is not one feature, but that is a distinguishing feature as against a situation in which a master of his craft sits in Nrnberg, or in London, and waits -- the goldsmith, for example, very typical of medieval craftsmanship, and waits till somebody orders a necklace. Even as far as this goldsmith, as they also may -- began to produce for an unknown market, you see, he already was capitalist.

That is, you must not be blinded by some slogan as though one time the world was capitalistic, and one time it wasn't. There is always the capitalistic element in all economy, in as far as you produce for an unknown market. Agriculturists did this, too, to a certain extent in the old days, you see. They had some surplus, where they tried to look for a market, obviously, you see.

But you -- we have to find something meaningful and pertaining to the economic process. And the thing is -- that it was the market which could be overrun, which is the distinguishing factor of capitalism. You can also turn it around

and say, "Why did they feel that this was the distinguishing factor?" Because they had mass production possibilities. They had a concentration of power, which enabled them, you see, to do more than the local market could absorb. So it is science that -- technology that enables us to do it. The waterworks of Mr. Grnewald, you see, are a case in point. When you can run a mine which can supply all the tin for all Europe, you get into the same trouble as -- the Bolivian government, which has to cope with a revolution every six months, because they are the people who produce this tin, you see. They have no balanced economy. And they are dependent on us, and the workers in Bolivia resent it, and so they are always hung up, as you know, between native economy, and an international economy. Isn't that true? The whole tragedy of Bolivia. They have one product, tin, and on this -- for this they depend on us, on the world market. They have to get rid of it. Otherwise there is no Bolivia.

(In other words, you would say that the ability of the capitalist to use his producing equipment, which is, as I see it, the groundwork of capitalism, allows him to produce more, which in turn forces him to find new markets.)

Ja, but my dear man. You must see that the medieval city builder had exactly the same surplus. He could invest, too. He just didn't invest, because it never -- never seemed profitable for him to have a marble quarry in Barre, and live -- delivering all the -- the funeral -- you see, supplying all the gravestones all over America. But don't you think the people in Carrara, where the marble comes from in Italy, could have done that, technically? You see, and -- and -- and also by means, they just had no railroad. That's the only reason I can see. Or no ships. They had no peace especially. But don't believe that these people didn't want to be capitalists. And they had also the -- what you say, the apparatus is -- was all there. I mean, Barre, as you know, furnishes actually the gravestones for the whole country. You call this a capitalistic business, but in the Middle Ages, they could have done this, you see. But the -- the idea wasn't there. There -- wasn't the higher skill. You didn't look in this direction. Some people did. But they were exceptions, as today the skillful people are the exceptions.

That is, there is a -- there is a projection or a passion -- monomania in every time which seems to open only one way from becoming active. But the other ways are not sealed, really. They are still there, but they are neglected, or they are not mentioned in your -- our textbooks.

Gentlemen, the -- the new economy -- a hint. West Point has published a book, Economics of National Security. It's an awkward book, I think, but very interesting, because it bids farewell to all the rules of the game of the capitalistic system in this country. And it comes from West Point. So -- much worse than any Communistic economy. It's a closed-shop economy in every respect. I reco- --

who has seen the book? Economics of National Security. It's a revolution in America. I mean, not -- not advertised. But it is -- inviting you to think of economics as something much more intricate connecting war and peace. And there is no peacetime economy as you have been brought up, you see, which can be left out of the tension between the previous war and the next. Because what is an economics of national security? An economics which teaches that there can be no economic development which disenables a nation to go to war, you see. Economics of national security. That is, the war remains as a -- as an incentive, or as a threat, or as a possibility. And you can't go any further. Then their power to make war allows it to go.

Well, you have heard this -- drummed into your ears. But I don't think the people in the economic department are quite aware to the revolutionary size of the rethinking which -- to which I have been inviting you. I want you to consider peace as only understandable in terms of war, and war only understandable in terms of peace. That's the dialectics you should learn. Not the dialectics between capitalism and Communism, in which I do not believe at all.

(Sir, are you saying that the difference between the 4 -- the System 4, and 2 and 3 is that now you have an inventor and you're introducing a new product, without the human being asked to produce that?)

Ja. I think you're driving at the right thing. I have limited capitalism as a principle to the existence to unknown markets. That somebody is still ahead of somebody else by finding a new market. Wherever you have this, you see, have capitalistic expansion possible, because you can make a surplus by being the first to deliver the goods. Where there is one more customer who hasn't heard of a refrigerator, and has had natural ice, the refrigerator company can go forward and make profits, you see. And decreasing profits can expand and invest and make more refrigerators, and the capitalistic system lives on this X of a growing economy, of an expansive mode. Because there is still one more customer to be supplied. This is over. The war has brought to the end of our insight. It isn't over totally. I can still be tapped. I can be still -- be arrested from my meager income, there can be still wrested some useless expense, you see, for Look, or for Esquire, or so, you see.

But most of us are ambushed and completely deadlocked. If you look over the -- the budget of the most people in the United States, they live half off the installment plan by paying off their debts on television sets, and on cars, and on refrigerators, and on deep-freezers, as you know. And then they are -- have a life insurance policy. And if you look over the people with an income of -- from 5,000 to 10,000 dollars in this moment, they are no longer very well adapted to be victims of capitalism, because they are, you see, already taken care of. They are

ambushed, as I call it, you see, and raided. And every cent of their income is taken away from them from the very beginning. And it's already on the first of the month, they know where two-third of their money goes. It's path- -- I think a pathetic way of life, which you call the high standard of living. It's stilted. In this sense it is high, but very stilted, because so f- -- so delicate. And isn't it true? Do I exaggerate? I -- as far as I know my friends, they all live with two-third of their expenses taken care of automatically on the first of the -- each month. Isn't that true?

Now that is no longer the capitalistic system, because no new inventor can come and say, "Gentlemen, I -- you have to divert $200 of your monthly income -- to my pocket." No. There are no $200 to be diverted. And therefore he has a very hard time to squeeze anybody out.

Now, let -- I do not wish to exaggerate. There are still some little oases, little places to be occupied, but the main point of modern economy is technological change, is the replacement of cheaper forms of production, and the invention, gentlemen, of enthusiasm for service by the mass of the people. Unemployment is now the first chapter of every -- textbook on economics. When I studied, gentlemen, and even in your own textbook, it still is an appendix. I can assure you that the great textbook on economics of Mr. William Taussig -- by Mr. William Taussig, the leading economist of Harvard down to 1930 has nothing to say on econ- -- unemployment, except that it is to be regretted. It's a bad thing, you see. It's like sin. Now gentlemen, a church that only says of sin that's against it, is not a very interesting religion, you see. Religions that say, "Sin is ..." you see, you can close the book on them. They're dead.

And so with an economics, gentlemen, today that says that unemployment is just to be regretted, you can be sure that it's not a book on important modern economics. Yet, from 1750 in this country, from Benjamin Franklin to Mr. Taussig and all the rest, this was the textbook on economics, and I think your course, by and large, in Tuck School is still based on a pre-unemployment economics. In 1935, the first book was written by a man of good standing in economics, which was called, Theory of Unemployment. Theory of Unemployment. And after that -- by an Englishman -- wie? Theory of Unemployment. The man -- name begins with R. I have forgotten the man. Does anybody know?

(Do you mean John Maynard Keynes?)

Oh, no, no. No, not this scoundrel. No. No, no. It -- a serious man. And -- Phil O -- is it not {P‚guy}? Gentlemen, it could be a P. Yes, I think it's something similar like {P‚guy}. That's a French poet. But this -- in this -- in this dimension. Theory of Unemployment. Very important book, gentlemen, because this was

the first man who didn't think that it would spoil his econ- -- -- career as a professor at a university by writing on this topic in such a serious vein. So far, it had just been left to Marxians to predict unemployment, and to be prophets of doom, and say, "Capitalism will die by unemployment." But the economic theory had always tried -- which you have been taught, the liberal one -- to hush up this question and say, "Oh, it takes care of itself. There is a crisis, and then," you see, "we are all happy again."

And this is no longer possible, gentlemen. So you find textbooks with now -- it's -- as in biology. Biology is just as dead as a science -- as you know, a 19th century science, as economics, because death in a bio- -- textbook on economics is explained on the last page. I have here a text -- seen a textbook on biology on which death is treated on page 1041. The book is too long, anyway, as you can see from that. But to treat the most important question of life on the last page shows that he had absolutely nothing to say about it, you see, because if you want to understand life, you have of course to begin with the question, "What is death?" You see. If you haven't answered this first, you cannot treat of life. And since they don't want to answer this question, they have all a machine theory, that death is an accident. If you have just a new machine, or repair work, there is no death. So biology is just funny for any serious man, because it doesn't deal with the central problem of biology, death.

Now in the same way, economics are stupid, because they haven't dealt either with war or with unemployment. And unemployment is just the in- -- domestic form of war, of civil war. And this just isn't there. The optimism of the 19th century said, "Oh, death? Sickness, we'll all be as old as Methuselem. We kill all the bacteria, you see. Unemployed? They are just wicked people. Anybody who wants to work can work," and has all the wonderful -- wonderful drugs of the human mind of Mr. Spencer, and Stuart Mill, and all these strange people, at work. Or "the survival of the fittest. Let them all die. We have no pity. I mean, the selection of the," you see, "the survival of the strong." Or whatever you turn -- you turn to, you find the economics of the 19th century are no longer interesting to us, because they don't deal with unemployment in the first place. That is, they do not admire the fact that there is enough work to be -- go around in any society. And then you come to the conclusion, gentlemen: people who have gone to war together must co- -- distribute their work among themselves. The division of labor of peacetimes is the result of our solidarity in arms. That's -- has happened here in this country in 1929 very clearly, when the people said, "A man who is unemployed," as you -- we talked about this, you see -- "cannot be dismissed, as to be uprooted, or to be -- to be not survived or not to be outlived by the fitter one, because he is a potential soldier." And a potential soldier is an asset to the economy.

Gentlemen, what is a new economy? The new economy is the economy which has the one problem: how to turn the unemployed from a liability to an asset. This has led to fascism. This has led to Communism. And this leads us to an economics of national security. That is, the war economy makes itself felt in the peace economy, so that it cannot be forgotten, and forms an integral part of the problem, who -- anyone who is a potential soldier, you see, must participate in the division of labor. And that's the only explanation, gentlemen, of this great secret of the division of labor, of which you find nothing in our books that is congruous with the magnitude and the nobility of this problem. You read on -- on classes of people, and you say, "We won't to -- have any classes." Gentlemen, you read of professions, and you say, "We want -- we want -- we want to be amateurs, jack of all trades." And you read of peasants, and you say, "I despise peasants. There are no peasants in America."

Gentlemen, classes, and peasants, and crafts, and professions, they are all great expressions of the mystery {history?} of a division of labor for peacetime {concerns}, of a group of people who form a solidarity in wartime, you see. The question is always, "How do you make the people who fight a common enemy together," you see, "participate in the -- in the cake, so that all can eat while there's peace?" As long as you do not see the inter-relation of war and peace, you have no idea what the socialists in Europe meant with "solidarity of the working class," and why there is no such thing in this country among the workers. The workers are unionized in this country, but all class war is unknown, because in Europe, this question of solidarity, you see, is so well known, because the people ha- -- felt -- deeply felt the necessity of military service always around them, and they tried to find a new form of solidarity as against the military solidarity, of the national army. And they woke up to the fact that as long as there were just national armies, you see, there could be no higher integration in the division of labor. And the cake would never be -- never { } for the { }. You see, they would all starve or have to emigrate to America, which they proceeded to do for this reason. And your whole continent is filled with the unemployed of Europe.

So your classical economy, gentlemen, which you read and devour, written by these good English bankers, is a very cheap thing, because the one-half of the story isn't told: the war question. Think of the Civil War, with the question of the slaves, which is a worker question, the division of labor question, obviously, and the other question is not mentioned that there are -- were 2 million people coming to the United States every year, because they were unemployed in Europe. Isn't that an economic principle of the first order? That there is no -- was no -- not ever any prosperity in Europe unless you had immigration? In all the good years of the 19th century, you see, the prosperity was based on -- on this guideline which took away the surplus -- human surplus, you see, which could not be provided for by jobs in -- in factories in Europe.

Where is this mentioned in your books? It's very funny, I mean. The system just works in a vacuum, as we have been told it. It's the same -- as sooner you look through these two scandals of our time: the biology and the economics, gentlemen, as purely things dealing with matter, with chemicals in biology, with germs and such things, and in -- economics commodities, and capital, you're quite wrong. Economics is the most noble science, the most -- sublime science, because it does not deal with commodities. But it deals with your work, with your way of life during peace. That is, how can you be one of the whole and yet have a special reason to be fed? You have to make this double point that you are one of the whole, you see, and that you do something indispensable, which in certain {matters} -- if your ideal solution is, which nobody else can do, which makes you, you see, indispensable, and irreplaceable. Can you see this -- this problem?

This is -- isn't this the greatest science of it all? But only when you begin with the unemployment. The warrior who comes home, the veteran and -- who finds no unemployment, that is the crux of any economy. It is today again.

The veteran, gentleman, connects the peacetime and the wartime economy, because he must find a reasonable place, a rational place in the economy of peacetime. And therefore you get fascism, gentlemen. Fascism is veteran economy. That's Mussolini. It's a veterans' economy. That is, they say the veteran comes first. The Legion says the same. The American Legion. It's not so stupid. It is short-sighted insofar as it doesn't solve the real problem: what is this economy out to do? Now comes your question, you see. It has to embark on constant, technological change { }. And therefore, we'll pay a premium to anybody who encourages 10,000 young men to go out into the wilderness, and to settle Rhodesia, or to inject some new life into -- into -- into Nevada, without benefit of divorce.

If you can clear up, clean up, clear out Nevada -- a group of college boys together with their -- other people, you deserve run of this country. And I think you should be granted the privilege that you won't have to go into the army and wear a uniform. This service should be -- this should be considered real service to this country, because it would, you see, add a -- a district of economic life to this nation.

I think they are -- the -- the future belongs to armies of industry, gentlemen. Armies of reserve. The famous reserve armies, gentlemen, of the -- your economic theory, and how to keep these armies of reserve, of people who at this moment are not needed for the immediate production of the commodities, you see. How to keep this occupied will take the imagination of every statement and every wise man in this country, and every wise woman, by the way, too. Be-

cause, gentlemen, this economy Number 5, this economy of change, has to begin not only with the veteran. The second member of this economy are the women. This economy is the first economy which -- at this moment you see it before your eyes -- has destroyed the last remnants of economy Number 1, that is, the home economy of the kitchen, and the pantry, and the -- the cellar, you see, and the supply in the house. The last remnants of domestic production are gone, and of domestic storage. We don't need anymore this attribution of certain works, like candles, or soap, or weaving done -- to be done in the home, you see, outside the -- the {great} economy.

There is nothing left at this moment. But it is only now that in Europe this has happened. There is upheaval even more staggering. You already had suffragettes for the last 60-years, gentlemen, but what is a suffragette? What is a woman voter, you see? A woman voter is a -- a person who is as much as a veteran, afraid -- and has to be afraid to find a place in the public economy, the market economy, you see, because there is nothing at home on which she can feed, or by which she can be kept busy.

The -- the last market, the home, has been destroyed by capitalism. And as long as people made laces and mended socks, this was still a market to be {undermined}, you see. Now you throw away your socks. Who's going to mend socks? I mean, there -- some {Dartmouth} boys did. You know, they came back from -- from Scotland, and sat on the boat and knitted socks. Well, but that's a hobby, obviously, you see. Have you -- this is quite famous, you see. I -- were -- the people who told me this said, -- they said, "Really, now Scotland invades Dartmouth College." These students actually sat on board ship and -- and knitted. But you will admit it's just -- that's just play. It's nothing serious.

That is, the times of your grandmothers however, were very serious, because the socks were knitted at home, and they are mended at home. And who mends anything today? You throw it away. That is, another market of -- you see, is des- -- is -- is conquered by the capitalistic system. You can say the last market.

We have a veteran's economy, gentlemen, and a woman's economy. In this sense, that the ecos, the house in which we produce is the one house in which we produce as a human race as a whole, and it is no longer -- you can't look or go -- you can't go homeward, Angel. You can't -- however -- you can't go home again, by --?

(Thomas Wolfe.)

Ja. You can't go home again. There is no home in the sense of economics. All the whole world is our home. There is no other way out, gentlemen.

So will you kindly see that by the veterans and the women, the situation has become final. And that's why I think the dream of the capitalistic system which, by and large, in my estimation has lasted from 1600 -- even 1500 to 1900 or 1950, it's much older than we admit to be -- is over. Because the veteran enfolds his economy in his connection with the war. This, the capitalistic system has tried to overlook or to forget. You see, not to mention { }, in its -- in its complications. It was just omitted.

And that brings up the necessity, gentlemen, of beginning all economic theory with the problem of unemployment. That is, Marx has always said, gentlemen, that no science is a science that doesn't begin with a crisis. You are not a doctor of medicine if you only know what health is. You must know what an appendix -- an appendicitis is. That is, you must know the negative sides of life before you can begin to be called a -- a doctor of medicine. You understand. In economics, you only understand economics if you understand the crisis. Now Marx thought that in this cycle of prosperity, and adversity, and depression, and so -- he could -- had found the key to the crisis. Gentlemen, I think we have outMarxed Marx long ago, with the two world wars. It is war and not the crisis which you have to face as the outcome of a blind economy, of an economy which is just embarking on a peacetime endeavor. And that does not mention the fact, gentlemen, that the veteran has a claim on our economy.

I can prove this to you, gentlemen. All socialists of the 19th century, including Marx, have thought that the worker would not be a soldier, that at the -- 1914, the great fear of the government was that the workers would -- strike. It has been found that the opposite is true. In all countries of Europe, nationalism is now anchored in the masses of the workers, because it is only in a nation that these workers have any hope to announce their claim as veterans. In a blank society of -- you see, of -- of a vague -- vagueness, they would have no claim. It is only by belonging to an army that they s- -- have a claim for belonging to the capital of a country. The man who has no other means of production is made by war service a claimant to a part of the capital. Can't you see this? All socialists have gone the way of all flesh, including Norman Thomas. That is, no -- there is no greater nationalist in Germany than the socialists at this moment. This is -- the same is true of the Labour Party of England, to the great dismay of the Communists in Russia, you see. The bulwark against Communism in Europe are not the capitalists, but the -- the socialists -- workers, because you can go to the government in -- in Bonn, or in Paris, or in Rome, and say, "I am a worker, not only; I'm a partisan. I'm a resistance man. I'm a man who was a prisoner of war. You have to take care of me." That is, -- amounts to a share in the means of production, in the capital of the country.

This is so central, everybody can see it. You -- I don't tell you anything

you do not see in fact before your noses. But unfortunately our economists have not drawn any conclusions from this, as far as I can make out. Their books still read as though they had to deal with figures and commodities. Gentlemen, who cares? You see that coffee is burned. Sugar is not -- not produced. Wheat is plowed under. Who tells you that there is any reckoning with commodities? They are absolutely subservient to the question of your membership in the division of labor of a country -- in a country. Give a man a job; he's willing to burn 10,000 bags of coffee a minute, because -- it isn't -- the economy has never been based on goods. It has always been based on a peacetime way of living, you see, of making a living for otherwise people who have to go to war, potential s- -- warriors, potential soldiers.

Once you see this connection, you will demand from your teachers, and from the people in the public eye that they become more interesting in economics. Economics, as I said, is the great science of organizing the peace of a society. Isn't that big enough? It's much bigger than -- than -- than commodities. You see it already from all the public utilities. There can be no question that you -- that commodity doesn't come first.

Not even my own commodity comes first. But I think, gentlemen, I have to stop here. I've -- kept you too long. Next Wednesday, we'll write a quiz on The Multiformity.