ry, if one will, the other horn of the dilemma. That, too, one will
find as ill a resting place as an upright thistle. Let the wages,--as
with Mr. Bellamy,--all be equal. The managers then cannot vote
themselves large emoluments if they try. But what about the purple
citizens? Will they work, or will they lie round in their purple
garments and loaf? Work? Why should they work, their pay is there "fresh
and fresh"? Why should they turn up on time for their task? Why should
they not dawdle at their labor sitting upon the fence in endless
colloquy while the harvest rots upon the stalk? If among them is one
who cares to work with a fever of industry that even socialism cannot
calm, let him do it. We, his fellows, will take our time. Our pay is
there as certain and as sound as his. Not for us the eager industry and
the fond plans for the future,--for the home and competence--that
spurred on the strenuous youth of old days,--not for us the earnest
planning of the husband and wife thoughtful and anxious for the future
of their little ones. Not for us the honest penny saved for a rainy day.
Here in the dreamland of socialism there are no rainy days. It is
sunshine all the time in this lotus land of the loafer. And for the
future, let the "State" provide; for the children's welfare let the
"State" take thought; while we live it shall feed us, when we fall ill
it shall tend us and when we die it shall bury us. Meantime let us eat,
drink and be merry and work as little as we may. Let us sit among the
flowers. It is too hot to labor. Let us warm ourselves beside the public
stove. It is too cold to work.

But what? Such conduct, you say, will not be allowed in the
commonwealth. Idleness and slovenly, careless work will be forbidden?
Ah! then you must mean that beside the worker will be the overseer with
the whip; the time-clock will mark his energy upon its dial; the machine
will register his effort; and if he will not work there is lurking for
him in the background the shadowed door of the prison. Exactly and
logically so. Socialism, in other words, is slavery.

But here the socialist and his school interpose at once with an
objection. Under the socialist commonwealth, they say, the people will
want to work; they will have acquired a new civic spirit; they will work
eagerly and cheerfully for the sake of the public good and from their
love of the system under which they live. The loafer will be extinct.
The sponge and the parasite