The World in 2000 Years

by Georges Pellerin

  “That reminds me of a conversation I had one day with a rich parvenu at the annual dinner of the Society of French Agriculturalists at the Café Riche.

  “‘Personally,’ he said to me, sententiously, ‘I want a sovereign.’

  “‘Oh? Why?’

  “‘To promote commerce.’

  “‘You think that a sovereign is indispensable to nourish labor?’

  “‘Yes, the Empire is the proof of it. A sovereign is surrounded by a court relentless in its expenditure; he holds ball, receptions, gala feasts, and all the money that comes in by the door goes out by the window.’

  “‘Under the pretext of stimulating the circulation of capital, then, it’s necessary to attribute 36 million francs to a single individual, in order that he might rack his brains to imagine large-scale enjoyments whose expenses would suffice for the upkeep of a large number of families?’

  “‘There speaks an intransigent! Come on, you can’t grant me one poor little sovereign—a king, an emperor, a sultan or whatever?’

  “‘A fetish!’

  “‘A fetish, if you like, provided that it represents a sovereign.’

  “‘You cling absolutely to your sovereign, to serve as a sieve for taxpayers’ money. You cling to him, not because of the utility that he might have but for the superior reason that he is called the sovereign?’

  “‘Well, yes—it does no harm to anyone, and would give me pleasure.’

  “Let us close the parentheses and return to the exhibitions.

  “The annual exhibitions of different bodies of industry thus take place in the same location. The ensemble of corporations puts on a complete exhibition of everything new that the industry has produced during the year.

  “One of these exhibitions is taking place now. The crowds are flocking into it, avid to keep up with the course of progress. I’m going in with it.

  “A fantastic spectacle! The most difficult problems of modern science have been resolved; their solution is childishly simple. Here there are locomotives moved, not by steam but by electricity, by solar heat and by compressed air. There are dirigible balloons equipped for long voyages. Further on there are submarine vessels maneuvering, bizarrely enough, under the pressure of a jet of water—the element vanquished by the element. And the visitors are passing back and forth without manifesting the slightest sign of astonishment. Electricity plays the greatest role in all those inventions. It is appropriated to everything: lighting, locomotion, manufacture; there are batteries, wires and coils everywhere; currents are flowing in all directions.

  “In sum, everything that our nursling scientists deem chimerical is displayed before the eyes of the crowd. Oh, I regret not being a mathematician, so that I might describe the mechanisms that drive all these machines, but since infancy I’ve manifested an invincible horror of algebra, geometry, mechanics and all those arcana. If nature abhors a vacuum, can I not have a horror of numbers? It’s the law of antipathies. Magnetism, always magnetism! That comes back to your domain, Monsieur Hobson.

  “How I would like to have overcome that antipathy! What I can see is so fabulous, that, for want of a minute description, no one would believe me. I’ll content myself with admiring it, without being able to explain it.”

  “So steam has had its day?”

  “Steam? Oh, you’re causing me to fall from the height at which I’m flying. Steam? But that’s the ABC of science. It requires costly combustibles, whereas sunlight, compressed air and natural electricity cost nothing. The true objective of industry is to do much with little; it has gone further still—is does much with nothing.”

  Monsieur Landet had never been gripped by that feverish gaiety before. Hobson looked at him anxiously.

  “Electricity! Electricity!” the savant continued. “It’s you who are the spark of life; I feel it in the contagious tremor that is agitating me. Thus the essence of the soul is discovered. One can fabricate it. Oh, if only I could analyze the composition of that elixir! My God! My God! To see all these marvels and not be able to comprehend them!”

  Monsieur Landet took his head in both hands and squeezed it angrily. Hobson, alarmed by that overexcitement, made as if to wake him up.

  “No, no—let me be!” cried the savant. “I want to enjoy this intoxicating contemplation, remain in this magical milieu; I want to live this life, I want to die in my illusion.”

  Hobson got to his feet and directed his eyes at the savant. “Wake up!” he commanded.

  “No, no—I don’t want to!”

  “Wake up! I order you to.”

  The savant uttered a sigh and seemed to yield to the magnetizer’s will.

  A few minutes later, he was awake, striding back and forth in the apartment as if he had quicksilver in his veins.

  “Well, what’s the matter with me?” he suddenly demanded of Hobson.

  “Consult the stenography,” the latter replied, “and you’ll see.”

  Monsieur Landet threw himself on the sheets of paper.

  When he had finished reading, he exclaimed: “Fabulous! Fabulous! Fabulous! The transmission of electric currents across 20 centuries!”

  Commerce: Mutual Obligations, Commercial Freedom, Free Trade and Protection

  Hobson tried to oblige Monsieur Landet to rest for a few days. The feverish fit by which the latter had been gripped at the end of the last séance caused him to fear a brain hemorrhage. But Monsieur Landet pressed him so insistently that he withdrew the order. The world—so the savant said—was waiting impatiently for the results of their experiments...

  “We’re going to talk about commerce. ‘The art of mutual deception’—that’s the best definition of it that one can give in our epoch.

  “Today, the exchange of products is an element of wealth; it skirts the extreme limit at which good faith becomes confused with fraud.

  “The great art of the tradesman consists of depreciating the other person’s products and giving value to his own; to supply poorer merchandise and make it appear better; to seduce by price and deceive in quality; to attract, to dazzle, to captivate the client with promises, claims and articles defying all competition, on which he is surer to make a loss, but the price of which he will raise when the reputation of his business is secure—in brief, to toy with the credulity of the public.

  “It is not the best and most solid products that have the greatest chance of success; it is those which flatter the gaze and whose ostentation implies a value higher than they have in reality.

  “The shopkeeper who can capture clients quickly by appealing to their vanity makes a considerable fortune. He knows the human species and addresses himself to its vices. That which is of good quality, solid and well-made passes unnoticed, because it has no effect.

  “Conscience, in business, is a hindrance to the prosperity of the retailer; the public is not grateful for it. The great means of attraction is publicity: posters on walls, advertisements in the newspapers, leaflets handed out on street corners, illustrated brochures, chromolithographic images—in sum, everything that attracts attention.

  “One finds therein the description of extraordinary articles at fabulous cheap prices. One allows oneself to be tempted, one investigates out of curiosity, one ends up buying—then, one is soon disagreeably surprised to perceive that what had so much appearance is utterly worthless. A bargain buy is always expensive.

  “The big clothing stores have another system. At the opening of every season, they advertise articles of superior quality that they are selling at a loss. Women flock in, avid to take advantage of such an opportunity, but they do not get away with a single acquisition. They are pursued, bombarded and pestered by the sales staff, who offer them gloves, cravats, umbrellas, reciting the conventional claptrap. They allow themselves to be carried away, and they make purchases. Then the head of the department appears like a deus ex machina, a smile on his lips, a heartfelt expression and wisps of hair over his forehead. He unfurls a roll of cloth of indecisive shade, pompously emphasi
zing its suppleness, its shine and its color.

  “‘But it’s faded, Monsieur.’

  “‘Exactly, Madame, that’s exactly what provides its cachet, it’s the very latest thing, the fashionable shade, the…feel it for yourself Madame, it’s all wool. It can serve every purpose: to make curtains, a dress, a tablecloth; it’s hard-wearing, it can g into the laundry without shrinking. An extraordinary opportunity—take advantage of it, Madame; we won’t have any left tomorrow.’

  “The unfortunate victim yields to the eloquence of the department head’s performance. ‘Is that all you need, Madame?’ the indefatigable drone resumes. ‘We’ve just got in some superb vases from Japan; we’re selling them at 18 francs, cost price, instead of 25. Would you like to see them? Looking costs nothing. Take the elevator at the end of the corridor to the second floor; you’ll find a branch of the tramway that will take you to the porcelain department. Madame...’

  “The department head sketches a bow and vanishes.

  “The lady in question goes home laden with trinkets. That evening, a friend comes to take tea. ‘Oh, what have you bought today?’ cries the friend, at the sight of the packages heaped on the furniture.

  “‘Yes, I haven’t had time to unpack it all. Go on, unpack them yourself and tell me whether I have good taste.’

  “The friend unties the string and tears off the brown paper. The first thing presented to her eyes is the fine cloth. ‘What are you going to make with that outdated Havana cashmere, a lining?”

  “‘Lining!’

  “‘Well, yes, it’s no good for anything else—it’s faded.’

  “‘So much the better! What? Don’t you now that faded shades are all the rage this year?’

  “The friend, whose husband is a cloth-merchant, bursts out laughing. ‘Oh, my dear, there’s faded and faded—this is ten years old; someone’s sold you a pup!’

  “A few days later, a further disappointment for the over-credulous lady. It’s her day for receiving visitors. Enter another friend, whose husband manufactures porcelain. After the usual compliments, she exclaims: ‘Oh, how can you put that imitation Japanese vase next to that genuine Dresden clock?’

  “‘Imitation! But that’s authentic, direct from Japan—I bought those two vases at ’s store.’

  “The friend picks one of the vases up and examines it. ‘My poor friend,’ she says, ‘this Japanese porcelain has come all the way from the Rue Paradis-Poisonnière. I recognize the trademark—it’s my husband who manufactured it.’

  “‘Oh!’

  “In addition to these minor inconveniences of speculation, there are others more serious, which have terrible consequences for small traders. Clothing stores have expanded so rapidly recently that they have been transformed into veritable merchant towns, through which one circulates in elevators and tramways. They centralize a number of products belonging to different specialties: household items, furniture, saddlery, gardening tools, jewelry, clocks, bronzes, children’s toys, Chinoiserie. books, etc. They are thus absorbing the customary clientele of small traders, and, by means of the price reductions permitted by a considerable volume of trade, rendering competition impossible.

  “In order to attract and take possession of clients more surely, the owner of one of these stores has installed an art gallery, a reading room and a buffet in which cakes and refreshments are distributed gratuitously. All that is lacking is a flirtation room to shelter lovers on rainy ways. Many people go there out of curiosity, many out of greed, but of that number, some pause at the shelves and, seduced by the honeyed language of the salespersons, do not go home with empty hands. Thus, the generosity of the owner is not without positive results.

  “The customers find it easier to buy everything they need from the same place at a better price and they are right, saving time and money—but the small trader finds his shop becoming deserted over time. The volume of his business does not permit him to compete with the exceptional prices of the big stores, to make up for low margins in terms of quantity, and even if he could, the members of the public would still prefer to go where they are attracted by the fever of distraction, the enchantment of the visual display.

  “It is, however, necessary that everyone should live, and for that, it is necessary to respect the integrity of every body of trade. The encroachments of department stores are an attack on individual liberty, by an abuse of liberty. This commercial centralization with end up becoming and a monopoly, which will impose itself by means of prohibitive prices, and, if there is to be a monopoly, a State monopoly is better than a private monopoly. Liberty sometimes consists of limiting the extension of liberty, because an excess of liberty gives some tyrannical power over others.

  “There is one simple means of halting the progress of commercial centralization. The large stores employ prohibitive prices, so let the states impose prohibitive taxes on them; make them pay a duty for every specialty other than clothing, narrowly defined. Competition will then be equalized and the supplementary duties, added to general expenses, will raise the department stores’ prices to the point at which they will either go out of business or revert to their original specialty and keep to it rigorously.

  “What makes them so powerful today is that they regain in quantity the losses incurred in detail, when they willingly sacrifice a few articles in order to attract visitors. When the detail is separately taxed, however, they will no longer be able to write it off against quantity. They will die, submerged by a colossal deficit.

  “We’re approaching that denouement. Small traders are languishing, bankruptcies being declared on all sides; the ferment is increasing and a crisis is inevitable. It will burst forth.

  “The State will then get involved; it will erect barriers against the rising tide and, to ensure free trade, it will be protectionist.

  “If I’m talking about this matter at length, it is in order that the comparison with the future will be more striking.”

  Monsieur Landet collected himself for a few minutes, and then continued.

  “By contrast with our epoch, commerce in 3878 has for its motto: ‘The art of mutual obligation.’ Its objective is to enable everyone to live and enjoy the profits of trade, not to enrich itself. If fortune favors it, it is over and beyond mutual obligations.”

  “What are mutual obligations?” asked Hobson.

  “I touched on the subject briefly while talking about the family,” replied Monsieur Landet, “but this necessitates a detailed explanation.

  “The objective of commerce, as I said a little while ago, is to enable everyone to live, not to enrich itself. A material difficulty raised an obstacle to that thesis for a long time: the equal distribution of exchange.

  “Our descendants have gone straight to the target; they have resolved the problem by means of a law. In all circumstances, only laws are capable of furnishing positive results. This law assigns a particular supplier to each citizen, who cannot be changed without the judgment of a tribunal. Thus it assigns him a baker, a butcher, a greengrocer, a dairy supplier, a tailor, a shirt-maker, a bootmaker, and so on. The baker, the butcher, the greengrocer, the dairy supplier, the tailor, the shirt-maker, the bootmaker and the rest are subject to the same obligations of exchange. They must serve their regular clientele first and can only develop their commerce further when they have answered the needs of that clientele.

  “This division of mutual obligations is made by the municipal councils, as the division of direct contributions between the taxpayers is made by the general councils. The municipal councils, by fixing the limit of their mutual obligations for the citizens of their district, know in advance the annual volume of trade that each one has and the personal benefit resulting therefrom.

  “In this way, every trader has the assurance of a comfortable existence, that assurance being guaranteed by the State.

  “But the law has anticipated the possibility of a supplier discharging his obligations badly by delivering poor merchandise. In that case, it permits th
e injured citizen to go to the tribunal, in order to be liberated from the obligation linking him to that supplier and to have another designated within the district.

  “Commerce is thus returned to its true expression. Its traffic is equilibrated in such a way as to provide everyone with a living and not to concentrate wealth in the same hands. Having discharged its mutual obligations, it can enlarge the frame of its operations; free trade smoothes its path.”

  “Ah! Free trade!” exclaimed Hobson.

  “Yes. Napoléon I was inspired with vision when, from the height of his rock on Saint Helena, seeking to fathom the depths of the future, he cried: “We must fall back henceforth on the free navigation of the seas and the entire freedom of universal trade.”36

  “Free trade has prevailed over protectionism; that was a natural consequence of the triumph of liberty.

  “No more barriers which, in the form of prohibitive taxes, stopped imported goods at the frontiers of empires, reserving the internal market to indigenous produce. No more treaties that favor the products of one nation in preference to those of another. No more customs duties at the gates of cities that double or triple the price of commodities before they are put into circulation and isolate cities from rural areas by an exaggerated system of protection, and which, in the bosom of the same country, penalize indigenous products with exorbitant taxation and slow down consumption. A free market open to foreign competition, without distinction of nationality.

  “The admission for foreign competition is a spur to activity and stimulates self-respect. The protectionist system, which consists of repulsion by crushing taxes and customs tariffs, harms indigenes more than it is useful to them. A single country cannot enclose all raw materials in its bosom. Each one has its specialty of production, according to the nature of its soil and its climate. Southern Russia and Rumania produce wheat, England and Belgium coal; Spain produces mercury and copper, Germany iron, Greece silver, California gold, and so on. It is, therefore, necessary that these counties exchange the superabundance of their production with one another, to equilibrate universal consumption.