News from Nowhere

The visitor asks about education, and Hammond explains that without poverty, they have the chance to acquire knowledge as they desire it rather than impose it on children. The belief that education is a means to escape poverty results from, as he puts it, “the systematized robbery on which [the previous society] was founded” (76). He goes on to explain that people live wherever and with whomever they want. When problems arise, they simply go to live somewhere else.

Hammond reviews what remains of famous cities of the past, like London, Oxford, and Cambridge. The slums of London no longer exist, and they even celebrate a holiday called “The Clearing of Misery.” Smaller towns have been rebuilt. Oxford is now a place for real learning, whereas before, Hammond says, it was a pretentious place for cynicism. To explain what has happened to villages, Hammond recounts the horror of the end of the 19th century, during which trees were cut down, no one had work, and food was scarce. He explains that eventually, people gave up doing work they weren’t fit for, and their world is a result of the effects of that one. It took them time to recover from the oppression of poverty and adjust to ordinary life, but it slowly happened, and now they are happy. He says the population has stayed the same since the 19th century, but they have spread out more. He compares their society to a garden where nothing is wasted and nothing gets rotten. When asked why they keep things like forests and “wastes” in their garden, he says that Guest should go see them and enjoy their beauty. What would be wasteful would be to cover this nature with factories that make things no one wants.

Hammond and the visitor discuss the form of government in this society. Hammond says they have no government that his visitor would recognize because all people make up the parliament. They review the government systems of the past—the Parliament, the courts of law, the police and military—and their efficacy. The Parliament, says Hammond, protected the interests of the upper class, and the courts were not trusted by anyone. However, without private property, this type of government is unnecessary. When asked about defending their country from foreign invaders, the visitor notes that if the French had invaded the English, they could take no more from the working man than the English already took. Regardless of their state of war or peace, the rich went on as usual and used the poor for labor. The state destroyed most of the wealth to maintain this system, but some insisted on being rich anyway, therefore stealing even more from the already poor majority. The government did not cause this, Hammond says, but it was the machine used for the tyranny. Now the tyranny has come to an end.

Guest asks how their lives are arranged. Hammond says he must experience it to understand, but he can tell him what they don’t do. He says it is easier for them to live without robbing each other than it would be to rob each other. All crime is viewed as “errors of friends” (95), rather than acts that define a person’s character. Without private property, says Hammond, there is no need to commit violence because most people can accomplish what they desire without extreme measures. Sexual violence, born from the idea that women were property of men, is nearly nonexistent. Domestic violence has also ended because families are held together only by mutual affection, not legal or social norms. Hammond admits that there is occasional violence, but it is isolated between two people, not made worse by their neighbors. Moreover, recidivism is rare. With no punishment to evade or law to outsmart, “remorse will certainly follow transgression” (98). When someone does something wrong, their society makes it clear that they must acknowledge and grieve it, but if they punish the person, they turn it into a cycle of wrongdoing. Markets require no laws because people generally agree on the norms. People love their work because they create with their hands and do what they love.

Hammond, when asked, says they have no politics. He tells Guest that if he makes a book out of this conversation, he should put this in a chapter by itself.

Competition between nations has disappeared with the end of property and inequality. Guest asks if it makes life boring, but Hammond says there is plenty of variety in the people of the world. The difference is that disagreements do not spiral into further divide and competing theories.

He explains their protocol regarding communal decisions. If someone wants a bridge to be built, they propose it in the town meeting. If anyone objects, they postpone the vote until the next week so that both sides may make a case. Then they vote, and if the difference in votes is large, then the minority usually backs down; if they do not, the question is debated again, and if the minority has not grown, they let it go. Even if they are not convinced they are wrong, they are convinced that they cannot change the opinion of others, and therefore it is not worth their continued efforts.

Guest says that this sounds like democracy, and Hammond admits it does, but they have no other options. If a man who didn’t want the bridge built refuses to build the bridge, the bridge will still either benefit or hurt him along with everyone else. The only difference is that he can brag that he was right from the start if they are all hurt by it.

When asked about men’s incentive to work without a material reward, Hammond says the reward is life itself. They are so far from the belief that all work is suffering that it is hard for them to comprehend the belief that men are inclined not to work. They are afraid of losing work, not doing it. Work is pleasurable either because of the gain that might come afterward, because the habit is pleasurable, or because the work itself is pleasurable.

People cannot reach peace and stability without happiness, and they cannot reach happiness without daily work. Hammond explains that they found this happiness in work when they gained freedom to do the work they wanted, but this truth was discovered through pain.

Hammond goes on to explain that, after the creation of the World-Market that controlled life in centuries prior—essentially, a globalized form of 19th-century industrialized capitalism—workers were forced to make “artificial necessities,” and they began to lose sight of what was actually necessary. The economy worked only toward the goal of cheapening the production of all goods. Machines were used to free up man’s labor for other useless tasks. This fruitless attempt at endless growth resulted in brutal colonization.

Then came “the overturn.” Once there was no buying or selling, people only made goods that would certainly serve a purpose. They do not fear that work will entirely run out because art and science are both inexhaustible. Some places in the world, especially what used to be the United States, are still actively recovering from the ravages of earlier times.

Clara and Dick reappear, with clear signs of having made love, just as the dinner bell tolls. Guest comments on paintings that depict the Seven Swans and Faithful Henry, saying he is shocked that they still remember those childish fables. Dinner is simple but delicious. Clara returns to the idea of the paintings to ask why people tend to make realistic art of the past or abstract art of the present, but never realistic art of the present. Hammond says that people never make art about the present; it is always somehow obscured to seem like something else. Hammond and Dick theorize that the childlike part of humans wants to make art using imagination rather than create a reflection or the truth. They toast to this, and Hammond says they are too happy to worry about the future. Clara wishes their lives were interesting enough to paint about.