"No, I haven't as yet."
"You won't. The urge to work exists in more than ninety per cent of the population. Free him from drudgery and he putters in the garden, in a workshop, learns to draw, tries to write poetry, studies, goes into politics, invents, sings, devises salad dressings, climbs mountains, explores the ocean depths, and tries to fly to the moon. Few are those who sit in the sun and whittle."
"Say, are they really trying to reach the moon?"
"Yes, surely. But I want to give you an illustration of the current situation. Suppose in your day seven men own a big car together and all wish to drive from San Francisco to New York. John is crippled and can't drive. Joe is too young to drive. Jack doesn't know how to drive. Jake is a good driver but hates to drive, being of a nervous temperament. Jep is just plain lazy and prefers to watch the scenery, but Jim and George are both good drivers and don't mind doing it. Of course only one person can drive at a time. You propose that they all take turns at the wheel, barring the cripple and the child. Isn't it more reasonable to pay the two drivers for their services and let everyone reach New York in comfort? That is what we do today. Those who perform the drudgery of the nation are paid—and well-paid—in addition to their dividend from their inheritance."
Perry threw up his arms in mock surrender. "Enough. Enough. Frankly, I'm not convinced yet, but you certainly can make out a case."
Davis shrugged his shoulders. "Personally I'm not interested in moralistic reasons. The present system is the one the American people have chosen to serve them at this period of their development. It suits my temperament so I don't try to change it. If you want another you now know how to devise another which will be economically feasible. Then you are free to try to persuade the country to adopt it. You might even try to persuade a state. Several of the states have modifications."
"So I gathered. How do they work?"
"Well, Wisconsin has very high income taxes and pays a state dividend in addition to the Federal dividend. They have a nearly complete socialism with most business run co-operatively. It seems to suit them but I find it a dull pace. However, let me mention the practical advantages of the blanket dividend as compared with your moralistic proposal. In the first place it ensures high wages, because men who are free from economic necessity won't work for sweatshop wages. For the same reason it ensures good working conditions. Unions are no longer necessary. Those that remain have turned into fraternal organizations rather than battalions in class warfare. In the second place it ensures social security for everybody all the time and thereby makes government much simpler. In your day the social service bureaucracy was growing by leaps and bounds. We don't need social service workers where poverty is unknown. And it saves private citizens from the insufferable buttinsky-ness of social work, the prying catechisms that determine the 'deserving' poor. If for no other reason the dividend is desirable because it ended the incredible red tape and indignities of your old system of relief, and welfare work, and private charity."
"But see here, the dividend will hardly pay for operations and sickness. Suppose the idlers fall sick?"
Davis looked surprised. "Hadn't you gathered that health service is free? It obviously has to be. The community can't afford to let anyone be sick for fear of contagion and unsocial mal-adjustment. If medicine hadn't been socialized we couldn't have stamped out syphilis and gonorrhea for example, and our present social standards couldn't have developed. Medical men are public servants and among the most highly paid in the community."
"Doesn't that tend to make medicine un-enterprising and give it a tendency to fall into a rut?"
"Did it for the army and navy in your day? Before your time they were private professions, you will remember. However, a physician need not be a public servant. He can hang out his shingle if he likes. But with higher returns for public practice, plus every opportunity for research with unlimited facilities and no economic restrictions on the expense of treatment, practically all of the best ones prefer to work for the government."
"That reminds me of another objection. Won't everybody ask to be treated by the best physicians?"
"They ask, but if a physician has more cases than he can handle, he picks the interesting and difficult ones, and mediocre physicians get the commonplace ones. That works out best for everybody. In your day a wealthy hypochondriac could command the services of valuable men who should have been on the difficult cases."
"That's fair enough, I guess. Medicine has always fascinated me."
"You ought to fly up to the United States Medical Academy some day and get them to show you around. It will open your eyes. We've made a lot of progress in the last hundred and fifty years."
"Thanks for the idea. I'll do that someday. But to return to our argument. I'm a die-hard. Everything may appear rosy right now, but I believe that I see the seeds of decay in this system. Doesn't it encourage the reproduction of the unfit in unlimited numbers? Wasn't Malthus right in the long run? Aren't you steadily weakening the race by making life too easy?"
"I don't believe so. I think your fears are groundless. The pathologically unfit are inhibited from breeding by a combination of special economic inducements and the mild coercion of the threat of Coventry. The exceptionally brilliant and creative persons are sought after as parents. A famous surgeon, musician, or inventor will receive literally thousands of invitations to impregnate women who desire exceptional children or covet the social honor of bearing the offspring of genius. From a physical standpoint the race is being re-tailored by the development of gland therapy and immunization. A baby born today will never grow excessively fat nor emaciated, and couldn't catch typhoid fever if he slept with a victim of it. Instead of protecting a child from infection we modify the genes of his grandfather so that the baby has ten times the hardihood of a jungle savage. As for Doctor Malthus, he lived before the day of voluntary conception. If we need to limit the population, we are prepared to do it."
"Well, you've given me a lot to chew over and a lot of new angles to investigate. But I can't help feeling that there's a black swan lurking. Maybe I'll be back at you in a few days."
Davis chuckled. "Go to it, son. You've given me the first real workout I've had in years. Is there any more port in that bottle? That's enough. Thanks."
XI
Olga arrived one morning to find Perry walking the floor, and smoking. A pile of cigarette stubs alongside a barely-touched breakfast showed his state of mind. He flung her a curt greeting. Olga grinned.
"Little Merry Sunshine, no less. What's the matter, dopey? Come down with the Never-Get-Overs?"
Perry ground the butt of his cigarette savagely into a saucer. "All very well for you to joke, but it's serious to me. It's this damned place. I'm sick of it."
Olga's face became serious. "What's the trouble with this place, Perry? Anything wrong? Anything you need? Somebody been unkind to you?"
He scowled. "No. Nothing you can do anything about. The place is swell , and everybody is decent to me. I'm just sick of it, that's all. I know I have to stay here and need to stay here, and I'm not arguing about my sentence, but you can't make me like it. I'm going stir-crazy."
Olga's face cleared. "Why, Perry, you don't have to stay here."
"What? Why don't I? I was sent here for treatment."
"Surely. And you should spend quite a bit of your time here just for our convenience in treating you. But you are free to move around."