You have
attained nearly all that our most advanced political economists regard
as the perfection of economical order--a population nearly stationary,
and a soil much more than adequate to their support; a general
distribution of property, total absence of permanent poverty, and
freedom from that gnawing anxiety regarding the future of ourselves or
our children which is the great evil of life upon Earth and the
opprobrium of our social arrangements. You have carried out, moreover,
the doctrines of our most advanced philosophers; you have absolute
equality before the law, competitive examination among the young for
the best start in life, with equal chances wherever equality is
possible; and again, perfect freedom and full legal equality as
regards the relations of the sexes. Are your countrymen satisfied with
the results?"
"Yes," answered my host, "in so far, at least, that they have no wish
to change them, no idea that any great social or political reforms
could improve our condition. Our lesson in Communism has rendered all
agitation on such matters, all tendency to democratic institutions,
all appeals to popular passions, utterly odious and alarming to us.
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