"You see," he said, smiling, "that it is not merely that we have no money to pay wages in, but, as I said, we have nothing at all answering to your idea of wages."By this time I had pulled myself together sufficiently to voice some of the criticisms which, man of the nineteenth century as Iwas, came uppermost in my mind, upon this to me astounding arrangement. "Some men do twice the work of others!" I exclaimed.
"Are the clever workmen content with a plan that ranks them with the indifferent?""We leave no possible ground for any complaint of injustice,"replied Dr. Leete, "by requiring precisely the same measure of service from all.""How can you do that, I should like to know, when no two men's powers are the same?""Nothing could be simpler," was Dr. Leete's reply. "We require of each that he shall make the same effort; that is, we demand of him the best service it is in his power to give.""And supposing all do the best they can," I answered, "the amount of the product resulting is twice greater from one man than from another.""Very true," replied Dr. Leete; "but the amount of the resulting product has nothing whatever to do with the question, which is one of desert. Desert is a moral question, and the amount of the product a material quantity. It would be an extraordinary sort of logic which should try to determine a moral question by a material standard. The amount of the effort alone is pertinent to the question of desert. All men who do their best, do the same. A man's endowments, however godlike, merely fix the measure of his duty. The man of great endowments who does not do all he might, though he may do more than a man of small endowments who does his best, is deemed a less deserving worker than the latter, and dies a debtor to his fellows. The Creator sets men's tasks for them by the faculties he gives them;we simply exact their fulfillment."
"No doubt that is very fine philosophy," I said; "nevertheless it seems hard that the man who produces twice as much as another, even if both do their best, should have only the same share.""Does it, indeed, seem so to you?" responded Dr. Leete.
"Now, do you know, that seems very curious to me? The way it strikes people nowadays is, that a man who can produce twice as much as another with the same effort, instead of being rewarded for doing so, ought to be punished if he does not do so. In the nineteenth century, when a horse pulled a heavier load than a goat, I suppose you rewarded him. Now, we should have whipped him soundly if he had not, on the ground that, being much stronger, he ought to. It is singular how ethical standards change." The doctor said this with such a twinkle in his eye that I was obliged to laugh.
