“That’s it exactly, Julie. The people of your culture imagine that the treasury was completely empty when you came along and began to build civilization ten thousand years ago. You imagine that the first three million years of human life brought nothing of value to the store of human knowledge but fire and stone tools. In fact, however, you began by emptying the treasury of its most precious elements. You wanted to start with nothing and invent it all, and you did. Unfortunately, aside from the products (which work very well), you’ve been able to invent very little that works well—for people. Your
system of writing laws that you know will be broken works very badly for people, but no matter where you look in your treasury you can’t find a system to replace it with, because you started by throwing that system away. But it’s still there, working perfectly, in the Leaver treasury I’m showing you. Your system of punishing people who break the laws invented to be broken works very badly for people, but no matter where you look in your treasury you can’t find a system to replace it with, because you started by throwing that system away. But it’s still there, working perfectly, in the Leaver treasury I’m showing you. Your educational system works very badly for people, but no matter where you look in your treasury you can’t find a system to replace it with, because you started by throwing that system away. But it’s still there, working perfectly, in the Leaver treasury I’m showing you. All the things I’ve shown you and will show you before we’re finished were in the treasury of every Leaver people you’ve overrun and destroyed. Every one of those peoples knew how priceless these treasures were that you were trampling into the dirt. Many of them tried to make you see their value, but they never succeeded. Can you figure out why?”
“I think it would be because … We’d look at it this way: ‘Well, sure the Sioux think their way of life is terrific. Big deal. Sure the Arapaho think they should be left alone. Why wouldn’t they?’ ”
“That’s right. If I succeed in showing the value of what you discarded, it won’t be because I’m more brilliant than the Leavers of your own race but because I’m not one of them.”
“I get it.”
“What sack from the treasury shall I open for you today?” he asked.
“Wow,” I told him. “That’s not something I came prepared to answer.”
“I didn’t suppose you did, Julie. Think of a system you have that doesn’t work well for people in general, though of course it may work well for some of you. Think of a system you’ve been tinkering with and fighting over right from the beginning. Think of another wheel you’re sure you have to invent from scratch. Think of a problem you’re sure you’ll solve someday.”
“Is this a particular system you have in mind, Ishmael?”
“No, I’m not trying to draw you into a guessing game. These are the characteristics of all the systems you’ve concocted to replace the systems discarded at the beginning of your revolution.”
“Okay. There’s one system I can think of that’s like all those things, but I’m not sure there’s a bag in the Leaver treasury that corresponds to it. In fact, I rather doubt it.”
“Why is that, Julie?”
“Because this is the system we use to lock up the food.”
“I see what you mean. Since Leaver peoples don’t lock up their food, they wouldn’t have a system for doing that.”
“That’s right.”
“All the same, let’s keep going in this direction for a bit. I’m not actually sure I know what system you’re talking about.”
“I guess I’m talking about the economic system.”
“I see. So you don’t think the Taker economic system works well for people in general.”
“Well, it works terrifically for a few people, obviously. This is a cliché. There’s a handful at the top who make out like bandits, then there’s a lot in the middle who do pretty well, then there’s a lot at the bottom who live in the toilet.”
“It was or is the socialist dream to even this all out. To redistribute the wealth more equitably so that enormous amounts weren’t concentrated in the hands of a few while the masses went hungry.”
“I guess that’s right. But I have to tell you that I know more about rocket science than I know about this stuff.”
“You know enough, Julie. Don’t worry about that.… When did you start having problems distributing the wealth? Let me ask that another way. When did disproportionate amounts of wealth begin to be concentrated in the hands of a few people at the top of the heap?”
“God, I don’t know. I have images of the very first potentates living in magnificent palaces while their subjects lived like pack animals.”
“There’s no doubt that this was indeed the case, Julie. The earliest Taker civilizations come to us fully formed in this mold. No developmental hesitancy to be seen here. As soon as there’s visible wealth—as opposed to just food on the table, clothes on your back, and a roof over your head—it’s easy to predict how it will be distributed. There will be a few ultrarich at the top, a more numerous wealthy class below them, and a vastly more numerous class of tradesmen, merchants, soldiers, artisans, workers, servants, slaves, and paupers at the bottom. In other words, royalty, nobility, and commoners. The size and membership of the classes has changed over the centuries, but the way the available wealth is distributed among them has not. Typically (and understandably) the top two classes feel the system is working admirably well, and of course it is—for them. The system is stable as long as the top two classes are fairly large, as they are, say, in the United States. But in France in 1789 and in Russia in 1917, the wealth was concentrated in just too few hands. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“I think so. You’re not going to have a revolution if most people feel they’re making out pretty well.”
“That’s right. At this point in time the disparity between the richest and the poorest of your culture is wider than any Egyptian pharaoh could have imagined. The pharaohs could own nothing remotely like the extravagances that are available to your billionaires. This is arguably one reason why they built pyramids. What else were they going to do with their money? They couldn’t buy island paradises and travel to them on private jets and three hundred-foot yachts.”
“Very true.”
“Among the wealthy of your culture, the collapse of the Soviet empire is being perceived as a clear vindication of capitalist greed. It’s being taken as a statement from the poor that they’d much rather live in a world where they can at least dream of being rich than in a world where everyone is poor but more or less equally poor. The ancient order has been affirmed, and you can look forward to an unending future of economic contentment, provided, as always, that you’re among the well-off. And if you aren’t, the argument goes, you’ve no one to blame but yourself, because after all, under capitalism, anyone can be rich.”
“Very persuasive,” I said.
“The wealthy are always perfectly willing to leave things alone and not be troublemakers, and they don’t see why others can’t be as considerate as they are in this regard.”