g into the differences between the West-world and the Sov-world
and the possibility of resolving them.

Of course, to keep her company at all it had been necessary to suppress
his own desires and to go along. It obviously had never occurred to her
that a Middle might have romantic ideas involving Nadine Haer. It had
simply not occurred to her, no matter the radical teachings she
advocated.

Most of their world was predictable from what had gone before. In spite
of popular fable to the contrary, the division between classes had
become increasingly clear. Among other things, tax systems were such
that it became all but impossible for a citizen born poor to accumulate
a fortune. Through ability he might rise to the point of earning
fabulous sums--and wind up in debt to the tax collector. A great
inventor, a great artist, had little chance of breaking into the domain
of what finally became the small percentage of the population now known
as Uppers. Then, too, the rising cost of a really good education became
such that few other than those born into the Middle or Upper castes
could afford the best of schools. Castes tended to perpetuate
themselves.

Politically, the nation had fallen increasingly deeper into the
two-party system, both parties of which were tightly controlled by the
same group of Uppers. Elections had become a farce, a great national
holiday in which stereotyped patriotic speeches, pretenses of unity
between all castes, picnics, beer busts and trank binges predominated
for one day.

Economically, too, the augurs had been there. Production of the basics
had become so profuse that poverty in the old sense of the word had
become nonsensical. There was an abundance of the necessities of life
for all. Social security, socialized medicine, unending unemployment
insurance, old age pensions, pensions for veterans, for widows and
children, for the unfit, pensions and doles for this, that and the
other, had doubled, and doubled again, until everyone had security for
life. The Uppers, true enough, had opulence far beyond that known by the
Middles and lived like Gods compared to the Lowers. But all had
security. They had agreed, thus far, Joe and Nadine. But then had come
debate.

* * * * *

"Then why," Joe had asked her, "haven't we achieved what your brother
called it? Why isn't this Utopia? Isn't it what man has been yearning
for, down through the ages? Where did the wheel come o