Failure in a Modern Utopia - Page 2

longer
will it be that failures must suffer and perish lest their breed
increase, but the breed of failure must not increase, lest they
suffer and perish, and the race with them.

Now we need not argue here to prove that the resources of the world
and the energy of mankind, were they organised sanely, are amply
sufficient to supply every material need of every living human
being. And if it can be so contrived that every human being shall
live in a state of reasonable physical and mental comfort, without
the reproduction of inferior types, there is no reason whatever why
that should not be secured. But there must be a competition in life
of some sort to determine who are to be pushed to the edge, and who
are to prevail and multiply. Whatever we do, man will remain a
competitive creature, and though moral and intellectual training
may vary and enlarge his conception of success and fortify him
with refinements and consolations, no Utopia will ever save him
completely from the emotional drama of struggle, from exultations
and humiliations, from pride and prostration and shame. He lives in
success and failure just as inevitably as he lives in space and
time.

But we may do much to make the margin of failure endurable. On
earth, for all the extravagance of charity, the struggle for the
mass of men at the bottom resolves itself into a struggle, and often
a very foul and ugly struggle, for food, shelter, and clothing.
Deaths outright from exposure and starvation are now perhaps
uncommon, but for the multitude there are only miserable houses,
uncomfortable clothes, and bad and insufficient food; fractional
starvation and exposure, that is to say. A Utopia planned upon
modern lines will certainly have put an end to that. It will insist
upon every citizen being being properly housed, well nourished, and
in good health, reasonably clean and clothed healthily, and upon
that insistence its labour laws will be founded. In a phrasing
that will be familiar to everyone interested in social reform,
it will maintain a standard of life. Any house, unless it be a
public monument, that does not come up to its rising standard of
healthiness and convenience, the Utopian State will incontinently
pull down, and pile the material and charge the owner for the
labour; any house unduly crowded or dirty, it must in some effectual
manner, directly or indirectly, confiscate and clear and clean. And
any citizen indecently dressed, or ragged and dirty, or publicly
unhealthy, or sleeping abroad homeless, or in any way neglected or
derelict, must come under its care. It will find him work if he can
and will work, it will take him to it, it will register him and lend
him the money wherewith to lead a comely life until