Chapter I: Front Matter

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original diagrams.
See 28991-h.htm or 28991-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/28991/pg28991-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28991/28991-h.zip)

THE NEXT STEP

A Plan for Economic World Federation

by

SCOTT NEARING

Author of _The American Empire_

Ridgewood, New Jersey Nellie Seeds Nearing 1922

* * * * * *

_By the same author_

WAGES IN THE UNITED STATES.

FINANCING THE WAGE EARNER FAMILY.

REDUCING THE COST OF LIVING.

ANTHRACITE.

POVERTY AND RICHES.

SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT.

SOCIAL RELIGION.

WOMEN AND SOCIAL PROGRESS.
(Collaboration with Nellie Nearing)

THE SUPER RACE.

ELEMENTS OF ECONOMICS.

THE NEW EDUCATION.

ECONOMICS.

COMMUNITY CIVICS.
(Collaboration with Jessie Field)

SOLUTION OF THE CHILD LABOR PROBLEM.

SOCIAL SANITY.

THE AMERICAN EMPIRE.

* * * * * *

Copyright, 1922 All Rights Reserved

Printed in the United States of America

_This book is dedicated to the task of emancipating the human race from economic servitude_

"The community needs service first, regardless of who gets the profits, because its life depends on the service it gets."

"Organizing for Work."

H.L. GANTT.

"It is not common language, literature and tradition alone, nor yet clearly defined or strategic frontiers, that will in the future give stability to the boundary lines of Europe, but rather such distribution of its supplies of coal and iron as will prevent any of the great nations of Europe becoming strong enough to dominate or absorb all the others."

"The Economic Basis of an Enduring Peace."

C.W. MACFARLANE.

"Men cannot exist in their present numbers on the earth without world co-operation."

"Our Social Heritage."

GRAHAM WALLAS.

"The real way, surely, in which to organize the interests of producers is by working out a delimitation of industry, and confiding the care of its problems to those most concerned with them. This is, in fact, a kind of federalism in which the powers represented are not areas but functions."

"Foundations of Sovereignty."

H.J. LASKI.

SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT

Men progress in proportion as they are able to fit themselves for life, and to fit life to themselves. Both processes go on unceasingly.

Recent economic changes have brought the remotest parts of the world into close contact with "civilization" at the same time that they have increased the dependence of one part of the world upon another part. Oddly enough, this interdependence has been intensified under a system of society that deified competition. The conflicts, inevitably resulting from such a contradiction, have taken a terrible toll in life and well-being, and have left Europe in chaos.

The successful organization of the life of the world is impossible without the organization of its economic affairs. For the present plan of competition between groups, classes and nations there must be substituted a means of co-operative living. The organization of a producers society will provide that means. Local initiative must be preserved; self-government in economic affairs must be assured, and the economic activities of the world must be federated in such a way that all economic problems of world concern will be brought under some central authority which is representative of the various interests involved at the same time that it controls the disposition of economic life. A world parliament composed of representatives elected by the workers in the various producing groups would provide such a central authority, and would furnish the means of directing the economic experiments of the race.

Economic emancipation is the objective. The means for its attainment is a society organized in terms of producers groups, and living in accordance with the highest known standards of intelligent social direction.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER HEADINGS

1. _A World Economic Program_

CHAPTER I. THE NEW ECONOMIC LIFE 13

CHAPTER II. THE ECONOMIC MUDDLE 28

2. _World Economic Organization_

III. ECONOMIC FOUNDATIONS 51

IV. ECONOMIC SELF-GOVERNMENT 76

V. A WORLD PRODUCERS' FEDERATION 100

VI. WORLD ADMINISTRATION 119

3. _Economic Progress_

CHAPTER VII. TRIAL AND ERROR IN ECONOMIC ORGANIZATION 135

VIII. ECONOMIC LIBERATION 151

WHAT TO READ 164

SECTION HEADINGS