by Damon Knight
“I am a translator of poetry.”
“And that’s all?”
“I’m afraid so.” Stevens stood up to leave. “Thank you for your patience.”
“Wait a minute. Are you the Peter Kauffman who helped organize the first moneyless group?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I don’t know if your translations are any good, but we will certainly accept you. Welcome back, Mr. Kauffman.”
The District didn’t have much, but it was enough. Food staples were in fair supply, although there were recurrent shortages. There was plenty of housing, and the District had its own power and water. Stevens brought Julie home to the modest house they had given him and nursed her himself. There were no servants, of course, but a volunteer student came in several times a week to help him.
Stevens savored the irony: he was now completely dependent on the moneyless movement which he had once considered an aberration to be exploited, and which he had abandoned with relief ten years ago.
Intrigued, he spent part of his free time investigating the organization of the District. The membership was now more than three hundred thousand, growing by ten percent a year; it included a number of small manufacturers and suppliers, farmers, orchardists and dairy operators, construction people, doctors and nurses. Some of these were indoctrinated supporters, but the majority were people who had turned to the moneyless group because nothing else was working.
“My hospital went right down the slide,” one doctor told him. “They couldn’t get the capital for improvements, and the patients didn’t have enough money. At least this way I can go on treating people, and I don’t have to starve doing it.”
Stevens kept working at his translations of Villon. They were published under a pseudonym in the spring of 2022, and had a modest success. Ecclesiasticus said, “The Poems of François Villon, translated by Arthur Raab, is one of the best versions I’ve seen. Particularly notable is his recasting of the famous Ballade of the Hanged, in several ways better than Payne or Swinburne, into which the translator, while dealing effortlessly with the formidable problems of rhyme and scansion, has even managed to introduce his own name as an acrostic—unless, dare I suspect, the ‘RAAB’ turned up by itself, and the author adopted it as a pseudonym in order to impress us with his powers?”
Stevens smiled.
When his doctors talked about various ailments and annoyances, they said, “That’s your age,” as if in becoming sixty-three he had committed some fault which, if he had been more prudent, he might have avoided.
Perhaps if he had paid more attention, the years would not have gone so fast. In his childhood a school year had been an eternity, the summer vacation inconceivably far off; when it actually came, it always seemed a miracle. Was it the boredom of childhood that made it last so long? If so, perhaps it was no favor to give children more freedom and happiness.
Sixty-three was the “grand climacteric,” a term that had amused him when he first came across it. Like menopause, climacterics were critical points in a person’s life, and they were all odd multiples of seven—seven, twenty-one, thirty-five, forty-nine… except for the last one, which, for some reason, was eighty-one. The authors of the system had not thought it necessary to go beyond that point, and no doubt they were right.
The joke was one of perspective: at twenty-one, life looked like an expanding cone; at sixty-three, seen from the other direction, it was a shape rather like a lozenge. There had never been time to do all that he wanted to do; that had been a naive illusion. He looked now at young people, with their improbably smooth complexions, and realized that they didn’t know and could not be told.
He remembered that Newland had spoken about this very subject aboard Sea Venture, at one of their last meetings before Stevens had killed him. What had Newland said? Something platitudinous and kind. After all, what else could he have said? “Seize the moment as it flies”? Stevens had always done that, but the moments had slipped away just the same.
When he was dying in the fall of 2024, the observers came and clustered in his brain, and for a moment before consciousness faded, he thought he saw them: little luminous points speaking to him without words. They were saying something he could not understand, but he thought, It’s all right.
32
Abraham Oberndorf, who was forty years old and had a gray-and-black beard, was a horticulturist who spent his evenings as a user interface for Hamilton Steel. The mill and shops were in the Plains, but Oberndorf and his wife lived in the Northwest Maritime, where they preferred the landscape. One evening in 2030 when Oberndorf walked into his study overlooking the McKenzie River, the computer said, “Quite a lot of calls, Abe.”
“Anything urgent?”
“They’re all urgent.”
“On line?”
“Three.”
Oberndorf sat down at his desk and sighed theatrically. “Okay, let’s have the first one.”
The head and shoulders of a middle-aged woman appeared in the holo. “Mr. Oberndorf, my name is Dora Wallace, I’m the supply manager of the Ringgold Design Group in Macon.”
“Yes, Ms. Wallace?”
“We need a supplier for a hundred metric tons of carbon steel next year, and more later. We understand you’re one of the best.”
“Ms. Wallace, that’s flattering, but we get requests like this every day. All we can do is try to decide on the basis of what you tell us whether the sky will fall if you don’t get the steel you want. Okay? So tell me what’s so important about this project.”
“Do you want a formal proposal? We’re a small outfit, and we’ve always got metals from a jobber before.”
“No, it doesn’t have to be formal. Just tell me.”
Wallace seemed to squirm. “Well, can this be confidential?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, well, for the last seven years we’ve been developing and testing an all-terrain walking vehicle, and we’re almost ready to go into production. Okay to give you some plans?”
“Sure.”
A stack of papers thumped into the receiver. Oberndorf did not look at them. “How many units a year?”
“The first year, we hope to do five thousand. Then, depending on demand—”
“Okay, so this is basically a fun thing?”
“Yes, basically. It can go places a wheeled vehicle can’t, and it doesn’t degrade the environment the way wheels or tracks do.”
“Hm.” Oberndorf tapped a stylus on his desk. “Let me tell you the problem I see. We don’t allocate any production for AT vehicles for just the reason you mentioned, they tear up the landscape. We can’t stop other people from doing it, but many suppliers feel the same way, and there are a lot of local covenants, as you probably know. Well, suppose we decide to support your project. I’ll take your word that your gadget causes less damage than wheels, but any vehicle causes some damage. So we might be looking at a net increase in destruction because people’s resistance to these machines would be less and therefore there would be more of them out there. And also you’d be damaging parts of the terrain that wheeled vehicles can’t get to.”
“Actually, small sharp feet like ours are good for turf because instead of pressing it down, they break the surface and let moisture in. Remember the buffalo.”
“Okay, I’m not an expert, but I see what you’re saying. Have you had anybody look at it from that standpoint?”
“Yes, a couple of people. One of them is Marlene Eisenwein of Cornell. Her report is in that stack, if you want to read it. Another thing, about going places a wheeled vehicle can’t—if somebody is injured, we can get to them and bring them out without using a helicopter.”
“That’s a good wrinkle. All right, Ms. Wallace, I’ll study this material and get back to you.”
Somehow the world kept turning. Young people were taught about the money society, and about wars and guns and bombs, just as they were taught about communism and the church. There was a Gun Museum in Dallas. In it could be found sp
ecimens of every major firearm ever manufactured: rifles, derringers, revolvers, automatics, machine guns; school children on tours looked at them wide-eyed. “But why did they want to kill people?” they asked, and the grownups could not explain.
Among people born after 2030, no one could remember a world in which people starved to death or were homeless or in misery. Everyone took it for granted that when they had finished their education they would find congenial work. They traveled over the whole earth, healthy and optimistic. Some liked one climate, some another. They met, fell in love, married or didn’t marry; the usual size of their families was three. Year after year, the population gently declined. There was ample room, enough for everyone. The past seemed to them like a long darkness.
In the summer of 2080 one of Kim’s greatgrandchildren, a young woman named Mary Beth Slater, was climbing a mountain slope. Her walker’s six red-painted legs dipped up and down three at a time; the feet scrabbled for purchase on the stream pebbles, put down claws; then the other three lifted, shedding bright water. Sunlight was a weight on Mary Beth’s head and shoulders. The walker’s body lurched back and forth just enough to keep her awake. Up the stream was the easiest route; the walker was too broad for most trails. Had to watch out for fisherfolk, though. There was one now up at the end of the next reach, a man, looked like, with waders and a funny hat, casting a white arc of line. She saw his head turn and could imagine his expression. No problem. “Left,” she told the walker. It turned obediently. “Climb.” It pawed at the bank, found purchase, lifted. One foot, two foots, three, up and over. Good walker. It lurched through slippery weeds, always a tripod. The streamside legs extended, the others retracted; it kept her roughly level but waved her back and forth a lot. On the whole she would rather be walking. No use thinking about that.
She passed the fisherman and raised her hand. He stared back without response. When he was out of sight, she steered the walker down into the stream again.
By dinnertime she was high in the Cascades and the evergreens were thinning. She dipped a bucket into the water, then climbed out on a meadow spangled with lupines, put her leg braces on, inflated her tent, made a fire. She was all alone in the circle made by the tips of mountains. The sky was very far away.
When the sun went down behind a peak, it was like being submerged in dark cold water. She watched the flag of the snapping flames, smelled the woodsmoke and the stew somehow not fighting each other. The first stars came out.
“Hello there!” called a male voice. It came from downslope; she couldn’t see anyone. “Hello!” she called back.
Now she saw two shapes, men with backpacks, emerging from the pooled darkness. “All alone?” said the voice. She didn’t reply.
When they came into the firelight, she saw they were both in their thirties, beard-stubbled and bright-eyed. “My name’s Jim,” said one. “This is my buddy, Chuck. We didn’t expect to find nobody up here.”
“Mary Beth,” she said. “You like to sit down and have some stew?”
They took their backpacks off and squatted. “Don’t want to rob you,” said Chuck.
“I’ll put some more on,” she said.
Both men kept glancing at her as they ate. “Something wrong with your legs, huh,” said Jim. He chewed and swallowed. “Rest of you is okay,” he added.
Chuck grinned. “Sure is.”
Mary Beth kept her voice neutral. “Where you guys from?”
“Newark,” said Jim with his mouth full. He wiped his fingers on his red checked shirt. The nails had black crescents under them. “Good walking here. That gadget do it for you?”
“It does okay.”
“Listen,” said Jim, moving closer. “Is there room for two in that tent?”
“There is, but not for you.”
“Don’t be that way.” He put his hand toward her and she blocked it.
“I’m just not interested. Go on now and get out of here, both of you.”
They looked disappointed. “Serious?” asked Jim.
“Serious. No hard feelings?”
“No.”
They stood up slowly and put on their packs. “Well, thanks for the stew,” said Jim. As they walked away, he turned and looked back over his shoulder. “Too bad,” he said. “You sure are one sweet little piece of ass.”
Then they were out of the firelight, only dim bulks moving against the mountainside. She heard their voices awhile; then they were gone. She took a deep breath and relaxed; life was good. And the stars were still there.
Appendix
Extracts from The Moneyless Society
and other writings and speeches
of Edgar Palladino
• What do they mean when they say I am an idealist? They mean that my beliefs are impractical, all very well in theory but impossible to put into practice, whereas they are men of the world, practical men who understand how to get things done.
I prefer to call myself an optimalist, meaning that I would like to get things done in the best way possible, rather than to assume that the worst way is the only way. We cannot achieve an ideal society, since we are not angels, but we can aim for eutopia rather than for cacotopia, the world of misery, violence and cruelty in which we now live.
• In classical times money replaced the barter system because it was much easier and more flexible; instead of carrying cattle from place to place one could carry little bits of metal (pecunia). The money system also led to much simpler accounting; since everything had a money equivalent, all transactions could be recorded in a single category, instead of having to write down, “Fifty cattle, five plows, ten chickens,” etc. Even the USSR always used a money system, even though its currency was nonconvertible and until quite late in its history the government was almost the only employer; and why? Because of the need for accounting. And this is why people say we have to stay in the money system, because the only alternative is to go back to barter, which is too clumsy. But there is another alternative which does not involve either money or barter, neither does it involve wages, salaries, dividends, fees, or any other form of payment. It is the moneyless society, in which no one is paid for anything.
• For many centuries and in all parts of the world, the subjugation of women has been accomplished by valuing them in money. Solomon, we are told, had three hundred concubines, an exaggeration, perhaps, but he certainly had many concubines, and they were his property, valued in money just as his peacocks and camels were.
I once attended a lecture by a filmmaker who had visited a nomadic tribe in North Africa whose women are extraordinarily beautiful. In the film he showed us, we saw something extraordinary: these women walked with the men, neither exaggerating their movements for erotic reasons nor keeping their eyes down modestly, but looking about them calmly and confidently, seeing everything; in short, they behaved neither like courtesans nor virtuous women, but like free men.
Speaking of one of these women, the filmmaker said, “She would be worth a million dollars if only she were in New York, London or Paris.” This was an intelligent and sensitive man, but he could think of no way to praise this free woman except to assign her a dollar value, as if she were a commodity to be traded.
In our present system women are commodities, whether they are actresses, wives, or prostitutes. But that is no surprise, because everything is a commodity. Men and children are also commodities. Under the money system everything has a value, not a human value but a market value.
When we hear of a famous man, we ask, “How much is he worth?” And if the man should be kidnapped and held for ransom, then we find out how much he is worth, or at least how much his relatives are willing to pay for him. In the money system everything is for sale, including men, women and children. And if a man or woman has a very low money value, we say he is “worthless.” Yes, and we also say, “As cheap as dirt,” because we do not value the soil but only its location and use. Thus, by putting a money value on everything, we are able to pervert and ignore the real value
of everything. We cut down the forests because they are worth more as lumber than as living trees. We despoil the planet that nourishes us and invite our own disaster, and all because of this illusory money.
• I am asked, is there any difference between the moneyless society and a classless society? Yes, there is a difference. The moneyless society liberates us from the domination of capital with all that implies, but not from the tendency of the human race to divide itself into classes. When we look at each other we see that some of us are more talented, more able, or more wise, some more beautiful, some more graceful, and these classes will endure, but the moneyless society means that no class rules another, because all have an equal right to everything.
• I am asked, with a triumphant smirk, where will the capital come from for great enterprises? The question reveals the poverty of my critics’ imaginations. Capital does not build pyramids or bridges; people build them using materials which they obtain from the earth. Capital is only one way of organizing such efforts. Long before Adam Smith was born or thought of, the pyramids of Egypt and the great public works of the Incas in Peru were built without capital.
Then my critics ask, as if they have not heard me, How will great enterprises come into being if there is no profit and therefore no incentive? They forget that in our present world many of the greatest enterprises are undertaken by governments, which make no profit; and in fact, it is often said that only governments can afford to undertake the greatest of these projects.
Even in this world, profit is not the strongest motive. A small businessman hopes to earn a profit which to him is equivalent to a living. A big businessman no longer has to worry about his living, and profits to him are no more than a way of keeping score. People build gigantic enterprises, not for profit but for glory and for love of the game. Others, such as inventors and artists, hope for a profit because they must live, but if their living were free, they would still invent or create because it is in their nature to do so.