The Next Step: A Plan for Economic World Federation Part 11

c. The executive committee would meet once in four months, or oftener at its discretion.

5. The executive committee would select, from its members.h.i.+p, a number of administrative boards, at the same time naming the chairman of each board. Each of these administrative boards would be charged with the responsibility of handling a unit problem, such as the control of resources, the control of transport, and the like.

6. The chairmen of the various administrative boards would const.i.tute the executive heads of the world producers' federation. They might be called the world producers' federation board of managers. This board of managers would be responsible to the world parliament executive committee.

a. If, at any time, the board of managers failed to secure a vote of confidence from the world parliament executive committee, on any matter involving a question of general policy, the board of managers would be automatically dissolved, and the executive committee would proceed at once to select a new board that would replace the old one.

b. If the executive committee failed to select a board of managers that could secure a vote of confidence, the world parliament would be automatically summoned to meet one month from the day on which this failure to elect occurred.

c. As soon as it convened, the world parliament would proceed, as a first order of business, to the election of an executive committee which would function.

d. If the parliament failed to elect an executive committee capable of functioning, the parliament would be automatically dissolved, a special election would be held within ten days, a new parliament would be selected, and would a.s.semble thirty days from the date of this special election.

e. By these means, the whole machinery of the world producers'

federation would be rendered immediately responsive at all times to the sentiment of its const.i.tuency, and the board of managers would be compelled to function in line with the policy of the executive committee and of the world parliament, or turn the work over to another group.

PLAN FOR WORLD ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION

---------------------------------- | | The world | Board of Managers consists of | executive | chairman of administrative boards| with one | | member from | | each industry.

---------------------------------- /| / | / | / | / | --------------- -------------- -------------- |Administrative | |Administrative| |Administrative| |Board | |Board | |Board | --------------- -------------- -------------- | / Boards of | / experts and | / specialists with | / chairmen selected by the |/ world executive committee.

--------------------------------------- | | Committee meets | World Executive Committee consists of | quarterly. No | ten per cent of World Parliament | industry less than | | five members.

--------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------- | | Meets in July | World Parliament consists of representatives | July. No | selected directly by the producers in each of| industry less | the major industrial groups | than fifty | | members.

---------------------------------------------- /| / | / | / | / | / | ------------ ---------- ------------ | | | | | | The producers in |Machine Man-| |Transport | |Agricultural| each of the major |ufacturing | |Industries| |Industries | industrial groups |Industries | | | | | are the qualified | | | | | | electors of the | | | | | | industry.

7. The world parliament would exercise, directly, or by delegated authority, all legislative, executive and judicial functions that pertained to its activities. It would therefore create the departments or subdivisions necessary to the carrying out of these various functions. The members of the world parliament would be elected for one year, subject to recall at any time by the const.i.tuency that elected them. The parliament would decide on the qualifications of its own members.

This proposed plan for the organization of a world producers' federation will be made clearer by a diagram. (p. 116.)

8. _All Power to the Producers!_

The plan for a world producers' federation is designed with the object of placing all power in the hands of the producers. The society of the present day vests power--particularly economic power--in the hands of the owners of economic resources and machinery. Their public inst.i.tution is the capitalist state, and their rule is perpetuated by the manipulation of its machinery.

Under this order of society, the chief emphasis is placed on owning rather than on working. The largest material rewards and the greatest amount of social prestige go to the owners. The present society sanctifies owners.h.i.+p, and raises the owner to a position of moral superiority.

The same system which dignifies owners.h.i.+p can scarcely recognize work as of supreme social consequence. The worker is therefore placed in a position inferior to that of the owner. His economic rewards are less, his place on the social ladder is lower, and his children are taught in the schools the necessity of getting out of his cla.s.s into the society of those who are able to live without working.

It is hardly necessary to remark that in a community dependent for its existence upon labor, the teaching of such a philosophy points the way to cla.s.s conflict and ultimately to social disintegration. If the community is dependent upon production for its existence, there must be sufficient incentive to continue production, otherwise the community dies.

The disastrous consequences that must of necessity follow on the economic order as it is const.i.tuted at the present time are already in evidence,--strikingly so in the case of the European breakdown. The owning cla.s.s society is coming to an end--falling of its own weight. The time has come when the producers must take the control of the world into their own hands or suffer disaster.

Man's sense of justice tells him that the product should belong to him who is responsible for creating it, and his experience teaches him that human beings take a greater interest in that which is theirs than they take in the property of another. The results of production should go to the producers; the machinery of production and the materials entering into production should belong to those responsible for the carrying on of the productive process. How shall these things be? Only when the producers themselves decide to make them come true.

All power to the producers!

This sentence carries with it the key to the society of the future.

VI. WORLD ADMINISTRATION

1. _The Basis for World Administration_

When the producers of the world are organized along the lines of their economic activities, and are federated in local, district and divisional federations, and in a world producers' federation, the structural side of the producers society will be complete. Such a structure is built for use, not for appearance, and its effectiveness depends upon the way in which it works. The handling or administration of the producers society is therefore the determining factor in its success. A world producers'

society may fail as miserably as any other form of social organization unless it is deliberately utilized to attain the ends for which it was created.

The establishment of a world parliament consisting of representatives from the major industrial groups would create an authority more powerful than that of any existing state because, in the first place, it would be more extensive than any existing state. But even supposing that one of the great nations--Britain or the United States--was to conquer the world and attempt to administer it, the world producers' federation would be far more effective than such a victor, because its rule would be founded on the will and on the consent of the governed and not on the imperial foundation of organized might. The world producers' federation could therefore look for a support from its const.i.tuency that no empire could hope to demand from its conquered subjects.

The centralization involved in maintaining the authority of an imperial ruling cla.s.s in a large and complex state is so great that it invariably results in friction and disaffection. The self-governing state, less efficiently co-ordinated and centralized, still has a far better chance for survival. Its energy-generating centres are so much more numerous and more localized than those of the cla.s.s governed empire that they necessarily reach a larger share of the population. The roots of the self-governing social group may go no deeper than the roots of the group under a bureaucratic government, but there are more of them, and they go to more places. The foundations are sounder because they are broader.

In addition to these functional advantages of self-government, it possesses an immense a.s.set in the sense of proprietors.h.i.+p that leads the citizens of a self-governing community to stand by the community organization because they feel that they have built it and that it is their own. A self-governing community therefore carries within itself the means of its own perpetuation in the enthusiasm and devotion of its population to an inst.i.tution in which they feel a sense of workmans.h.i.+p and of the pride of possession.

A world parliament, organized on the basis of self-governing industrial groups, would be unique in two respects. First, in that it was of world extent, and second in that it was built upon the industrial affiliations of its citizens.h.i.+p. If such an organization were handled in a way to hold the allegiance of its const.i.tuent members, its decisions on matters of world importance would carry an immense authority.

2. _The Field of World Administration_

There, in fact, would be the test of world government efficacy--in its ability to leave the handling of local problems to local groups, and to concentrate its energies on the administration of those problems which have a.s.sumed a distinctively world scope. Such capacity to understand the difference between the business of local groups and the business of the world organization would be the touchstone of world statesmans.h.i.+p, the criterion by which the master political minds of the age could be tested. The short-sighted, narrow-visioned leader of world affairs would seek to gain and to hold power for himself and for his immediate local interests. The presence of many such men in positions of power would soon split the world government into a series of factions, each one seeking to destroy the others and to take away their authority. Such a compet.i.tive stage would represent little advance over the present nationalism.

A world government has no virtue in itself, and may as easily degenerate into a scramble for office as may any other phase of group relations.h.i.+p.

Its success would only be possible where its power was strictly limited to the control of those matters that had reached a plane of world importance. Even then success would be impossible unless those responsible for making essential decisions saw the world problems as wholes rather than as localized and separable problems.

Grave issues hang on the method in which the world problems are approached and handled. Success is not a.s.sured by any means. Still, the dangers and disadvantages of a plan do not condemn it unless they outweigh the apparent advantages.

The people of the western world face a number of serious problems that cannot be solved by the existing nations. Some step must be taken to cope with the new situation that has followed on the heels of the industrial revolution, and in so far as the actual practices of life have evolved to a world plane, and in so far as they concern the workers in more than one industry, it must be apparent that nothing less than some world authority will suffice to cope with the issues that they present.

A number of economic questions, such as the control of resources and of transport, have already pa.s.sed beyond the boundary of the individual nation, and have reached a stage of world importance where they can be handled only on a world basis. In the normal course of social evolution, other questions will, in like manner, emerge into a place of world consequence. As rapidly as such developments occur, the administration of the world issues must be delegated to the world parliament and to its appointees and subordinate bodies.

3. _Five World Problems_

There are a number of problems that have pa.s.sed beyond the control of any single nation, and that should therefore be made the subject of world administration. Among them are: (1) the control of resources and raw materials, (2) transport (3) exchange, credit and investment, (4) the world economic budget, and (5) adjudication of world disputes. Under a world producers' federation, the administration of these five problems would be in the hands of five administrative boards selected by the executive committee of the world parliament.

Each administrative board would select and organize a staff of experts and specialists in its own field, and would present the outline of its proposed activities to the world parliament very much as the department of a modern government presents its budget to the parliament of its state. This presentation would take place through the executive committee of the world parliament, and it would be necessary to secure the endors.e.m.e.nt of that committee before the plan could go before the parliament.

When the plan was approved, the administrative board would begin to function as a part of the machinery of the world producers' federation.

Thereafter it would serve as a part of the world administrative mechanism, the working organization of which would remain intact, even should there be a change of policy, in exactly the same way that the department of state or of agriculture, in any modern government, remains intact through the various changes of party in power.

The specialists and experts who made up the staffs of the administrative boards would secure their appointments as the result of civil service examinations, and would continue in their positions until some question arose as to their efficiency. Each administrative board would be organized into a series of departments corresponding with the unit problems coming before the boards, with one specialist or department head charged with the direction of each of these departments. In the raw materials and resources board, for example, there might be one department for each of the more important resources such as coal, iron, copper, cotton, wool, timber, and the like. In the same way, the work of the transport board might be divided into departments covering s.h.i.+pping on the high seas, inland water transport between divisions, inter-divisional land transport, aerial navigation not wholly within one division, and so forth. In each instance, the task of providing an adequate supply of the commodity or an efficient service, would fall to the department or departments involved, while the administrative board itself would sit as a court of last resort, and as a board of strategy for the field in which it was functioning.

The administrative board would thus be a group primarily of experts, charged with the specific task of handling some problem of world moment, and responsible to the board of managers of the world producers'

federation for the success of its activities.

4. _Work of the Administrative Boards_