“Yes,” said Wesley Mouch. “We’ll close them. All of them.”
“The State Science Institute, too?” asked Fred Kinnan.
“Oh, no!” said Mouch. “That’s different. That’s government. Besides, it’s a non-profit institution. And it will be sufficient to take care of all scientific progress.”
“Quite sufficient,” said Dr. Ferris.
“And what will become of all the engineers, professors and such, when you close all those laboratories?” asked Fred Kinnan. “What are they going to do for a living, with all the other jobs and businesses frozen?”
“Oh,” said Wesley Mouch. He scratched his head. He turned to Mr.
Weatherby. “Do we put them on relief, Clem?”
“No,” said Mr. Weatherby. “What for? There’s not enough of them to raise a squawk. Not enough to matter.”
“I suppose,” said Mouch, turning to Dr. Ferris, “that you’ll be able to absorb some of them, Floyd?”
“Some,” said Dr. Ferris slowly, as if relishing every syllable of his answer. “Those who prove co-operative.”
“What about the rest?” asked Fred Kinnan.
“They’ll have to wait till the Unification Board finds some use for them,” said Wesley Mouch.
“What will they eat while they’re waiting?”
Mouch shrugged. “There’s got to be some victims in times of national emergency. It can’t be helped.”
“We have the right to do it!” cried Taggart suddenly, in defiance to the stillness of the room. “We need it. We need it, don’t we?” There was no answer. “We have the right to protect our livelihood!” Nobody opposed him, but he went on with a shrill, pleading insistence. “We’ll be safe for the first time in centuries. Everybody will know his place and job, and everybody else’s place and job—and we won’t be at the mercy of every stray crank with a new idea. Nobody will push us out of business or steal our markets or undersell us or make us obsolete.
Nobody will come to us offering some damn new gadget and putting us on the spot to decide whether we’ll lose our shirt if we buy it, or whether we’ll lose our shirt if we don’t but somebody else does! We won’t have to decide. Nobody will be permitted to decide anything.
It will be decided once and for all.” His glance moved pleadingly from face to face. “There’s been enough invented already—enough for everybody’s comfort—why should they be allowed to go on inventing?
Why should we permit them to blast the ground from under our feet every few steps? Why should we be kept on the go in eternal uncertainty? Just because of a few restless, ambitious adventurers? Should we sacrifice the contentment of the whole of mankind to the greed of a few non-conformists? We don’t need them. We don’t need them at all.
I wish we’d get rid of that hero worship! Heroes? They’ve done nothing but harm, all through history. They’ve kept mankind running a wild race, with no breathing spell, no rest, no ease, no security. Running to catch up with them . . . always, without end . . . Just as -we catch up, they’re years ahead. . . . They leave us no chance . . . They’ve never left us a chance. . . .” His eyes were moving restlessly; he glanced at the window, but looked hastily away: he did not want to see the white obelisk in the distance. “We’re through with them. We’ve won. This is our age. Our world. We’re going to have security—for the first time in centuries—for the first time since the beginning of the industrial revolution!”
“Well, this, I guess,” said Fred Kinnan, “is the anti-industrial revolution.”
“That’s a damn funny thing for you to say!” snapped Wesley Mouch. “We can’t be permitted to say that to the public.”
“Don’t worry, brother. I won’t say it to the public.”
“It’s a total fallacy,” said Dr. Ferris. “It’s a statement prompted by ignorance. Every expert has conceded long ago that a planned economy achieves the maximum of productive efficiency and that centralization leads to super-industrialization.”
“Centralization destroys the blight of monopoly,” said Boyle.
“How’s that again?” drawled Kinnan.
Boyle did not catch the tone of mockery, and answered earnestly, “It destroys the blight of monopoly. It leads to the democratization of industry. It makes everything available to everybody. Now, for instance, at a time like this, when there’s such a desperate shortage of iron ore, is there any sense in my wasting money, labor and national resources on making old-fashioned steel, when there exists a much better metal that I could be making? A metal that everybody wants, but nobody can get. Now is that good economics or sound social efficiency or democratic justice? Why shouldn’t I be allowed to manufacture that metal and why shouldn’t the people get it when they need it?
Just because of the private monopoly of one selfish individual? Should we sacrifice our rights to his personal interests?”
“Skip it, brother,” said Fred Kinnan. “I’ve read it all in the same newspapers you did.”
“I don’t like your attitude,” said Boyle, in a sudden tone of righteousness, with a look which, in a barroom, would have signified a prelude to a fist fight. He sat up straight, buttressed by the columns of paragraphs on yellow-tinged paper, which he was seeing in his mind: “At a time of crucial public need, are we to waste social effort on the manufacture of obsolete products? Are we to let the many remain in want while the few withhold from us the better products and methods available? Are we to be stopped by the superstition of patent rights?”
“Is it not obvious that private industry is unable to cope with the present economic crisis? How long, for instance, are we going to put up with the disgraceful shortage of Rearden Metal? There is a crying public demand for it, which Rearden has failed to supply.”
“When are we going to put an end to economic injustice and special privileges? Why should Rearden be the only one permitted to manufacture Rearden Metal?”
“I don’t like your attitude,” said Orren Boyle. “So long as we respect the rights of the workers, we’ll want you to respect the rights of the industrialists.”
“Which rights of which industrialists?” drawled Kinnan.
“I’m inclined to think,” said Dr. Ferris hastily, “that Point Two, perhaps, is the most essential one of all at present. We must put an end to that peculiar business of industrialists retiring and vanishing. We must stop them. It’s playing havoc with our entire economy.”
“Why are they doing it?” asked Taggart nervously. “Where are they all going?”
“Nobody knows,” said Dr. Ferris. “We’ve been unable to find any information or explanation. But it must be stopped. In times of crisis, economic service to the nation is just as much of a duty as military service. Anyone who abandons it should be regarded as a deserter. I have recommended that we introduce the death penalty for those men, but Wesley wouldn’t agree to it.”
“Take it easy, boy,” said Fred Kinnan in an odd, slow voice. He sat suddenly and perfectly still, his arms crossed, looking at Ferris in a manner that made it suddenly real to the room that Ferris had proposed murder. “Don’t let me hear you talk about any death penalties in industry.”
Dr. Ferris shrugged.
“We don’t have to go to extremes,” said Mouch hastily. “We don’t want to frighten people. We want to have them on our side. Our top problem is, will they . . . will they accept it at all?”
“They will,” said Dr. Ferris.
“I’m a little worried,” said Eugene Lawson, “about Points Three and Four. Taking over the patents is fine. Nobody’s going to defend industrialists. But I’m worried about taking over the copyrights. That’s going to antagonize the intellectuals. It’s dangerous. It’s a spiritual issue. Doesn’t Point Four mean that no new books are to be written or published from now on?”
“Yes,” said Mouch, “it does. But we can’t make an exception for the book-publishing business. It’s an industry like any other. When we say ‘no new products,’ it’s got to mean ‘no new products.’ ”
“But this is a matter of the spirit,” said Lawson; his voice had a tone, not of rational respect, but of superstitious awe.
“We’re not interfering with anybody’s spirit. But when you print a book on paper, it becomes a material commodity—and if we grant an exception to one commodity, we won’t be able to hold the others in line and we won’t be able to make anything stick.”
“Yes, that’s true. But—”
“Don’t be a chump, Gene,” said Dr. Ferris. “You don’t want some recalcitrant hacks to come out with treatises that will wreck our entire program, do you? If you breathe the word ‘censorship’ now, they’ll all scream bloody murder. They’re not ready for it—as yet. But if you leave the spirit alone and make it a simple material issue—not a matter of ideas, but just a matter of paper, ink and printing presses—you accomplish your purpose much more smoothly. You’ll make sure that nothing dangerous gets printed or heard—and nobody is going to fight over a material issue.”