Dawn of the Unthinkable (22 page)

“Nick, I have to tell you how much I enjoyed
reading that paper. I’ve been in this game a long time, and I can’t
remember ever reading anything quite like it. Of course, the idea
of a cash-less society has been around forever, our ancestors
obviously had to start that way. But the idea of trading must have
developed shortly after people started communicating with each
other, so that idea didn’t really take me by surprise. But to tell
the truth, it hasn’t been proposed much lately. Of course, there
are electronic cards that you load up with money, so you wouldn’t
have to carry much cash anymore, but that’s not the same as doing
away with cash all together. So that was a neat idea. The thing
that I thought set it apart was the value determination and new
legislative procedures. Those two items are unique as far as I know
and combined with the “cashlessness” makes for a pretty powerful
package. I would have given it an A+ if it wasn’t written in such
flowery language. It was almost as if you were trying to write a
historical document instead of a term paper,” he said and took
another drink.

Ryan let the words flow over him like a cool
breeze. To hear such words of praise from a man he had come to
admire a great deal made up for a lot of the rejection that he had
originally received. But now it was time to surprise the professor,
who like all men of knowledge, tried to act like there was nothing
that could surprise them.

“Well…” He proceeded to tell Cunningham the
entire saga of the how the concept had got started, why it was
written the way it was, all the people he had sent it to, and the
lack of response.

Cunningham sat quietly through this recital,
eyes opening wide at certain points. He shook his head at the end,
and said, "Well, I’ll be damned.”.

Ryan was delighted at being able to shock
his professor into near speechlessness. But then they were both
surprised by a voice from behind them.

“That’s absolutely the most fascinating
thing I’ve heard all day,” said a tall, good-looking Latino man.
“I’m sorry for eavesdropping, but I heard what you were talking
about, and I couldn’t help but to listen in. I hope you don’t
mind,” he said apologetically.

Cunningham looked at him in mock annoyance
and said, “Well, that all depends. Are you with the CIA?”

The man laughed and said, “No, no, nothing
quite as exciting as all that. Could I get you guys a beer?”

“I guess you’re okay, then. What’s your
name, stranger?” Cunningham asked.

“Luis Estrada Palma, sir, you can call me
Lou,” he said, reaching out to shake hands.

Cunningham took his hand. “Pleased to meet
you, Lou. I’m Wayne Cunningham. I’m a professor over at Temple, and
this is Nick Ryan, a student in one of my classes.”

Ryan shook his hand and said, “Lou.”

“Why would what the esteemed Mr. Ryan was
relating interest you?” Cunningham asked as their beers were set
up.

Estrada Palma took a long breath. “Well,
it’s a long story. You guys game?”

Cunningham looked at Ryan and asked, “You
interested?”

Ryan replied, “Sure, why don’t we grab a
table?” They found a table away from the door and sat down. After a
long drink, Estrada Palma started.

“I’m the president of a union that has
members in more countries than any other in the world and could
probably do more good for more people in the world than any other,
but we’re losing membership. The union’s name is the Industrial
Workers of the World, or the IWW. Ah, Professor, I can tell from
your reaction that you’ve heard of ‘the Wobblies.’ You would
probably know that we were a force to be contended with back at the
turn of the century, but various strikebreaking procedures hounded
us out of our strongholds in Chicago. And while we were once
strong, we are now relatively toothless, considered a relic in an
age of increasing automation and technology.

“I still feel there is a need for the
increasing service economy to have a voice, though, because the
people who hold those jobs are constantly manipulated to ensure
that very few ever reach even the lower ranks of the middle class,
let alone true wealth. That is where our union comes in. Current
trade unions, by striking one industry at a time, practically
ensure defeat for themselves because one company can find a way to
survive, and the economy and society pays very little attention.
But our union, by having members in all sectors of economy, can
support each other by use of a General Strike, which would be used
to throw the doors of production open to all the unemployed and end
the pursuit of profit to be handed over to a ‘Kept Class.’

“See, our union believes in the sanctity of
life for all people, and that cannot be achieved through the
current system of exploiting a certain segment of society for the
benefit of another. The current system ensures that the working
class never advances too far by not funding their education,
leading to a lack of wages, which relegates workers to poor
neighborhoods that have high drug-use and crime rates. So there is
a constant circle of poverty and despair, and the people who are in
charge of the system of change are wealthy men who have much
invested in making sure nothing ever changes.

“Well, our union wants to change things. We
would like to have the means of production controlled by the
workers and a spirit of non-partisan fellowship control private
industry. We look to abolish the profit system, end evil working
conditions, and unite all workers into one big union
worldwide
, which could not be ignored. In striving to unite
labor as a class in one big union, the IWW also seeks to build the
structure of a new and better social order within the shell of the
old system which fails to provide for the needs of all.” Estrada
Palma finished, his eyes shining and looking off to a better, but
possibly unattainable future.

Cunningham and Ryan looked at each,
stunned.

Ryan whispered, “A Proposal to Reorder
Society.” Cunningham nodded slowly, eyes wide. Of course, he knew
what the Wobblies were about, but he had never studied them too
much, as they faded out of effectiveness many years ago. To hear
their philosophy stated so eloquently by their president was very
moving. And to have it linked so closely to a paper that one of his
students had written,
that they
were just talking
about
, was uncanny. Here was a man who was actually trying to
put some of Ryan ideas into place, and he was lamenting how he was
not being heard. Hadn’t Ryan just relayed essentially the same
story? He looked again at Ryan to see if he was experiencing the
same mixture of surprise, awe, and sympathy that he was.

Ryan was staring intently at Estrada Palma.
His mind was racing, trying to absorb all the details of what he
had heard. Here it appeared that someone was already trying to do
something along the lines that he was thinking about, with limited
success. The fact that they were an international union was pretty
impressive. He had some ideas that Ryan hadn’t thought of, and they
seemed pretty exciting. He wondered whether he should tell him his
full idea, as Estrada Palma hadn’t heard the part about the concept
itself, walking up just as he was talking about the solicitation
and rejection of the article. This guy, distinguished as he seemed,
was still a stranger, and Ryan didn’t want to come off looking like
a crackpot.

But Estrada Palma kind of forced the issue
on his own by asking, “What’s a proposal to reorder society?”
looking back and forth between Ryan and Cunningham.

Ryan leaned back and smiled. “Well…” he
started to say. He decided he was going to tell this guy. He seemed
trustworthy, and now that Cunningham had blessed the whole
proceeding, he felt more confident. He launched into his whole
idea, actually managing to embellish certain areas with a few new
twists he had thought of. Estrada Palma listened intently, quietly
taking a sip of beer now and then. It took Ryan about twenty
minutes to run through it, and he tried to portray it in terms that
would interest a union leader, that is, that it would be completely
democratic and would benefit his members. But Luis Estrada Palma
was no fool; he had had enough silver-tongued orators who had
promised his members the sky and delivered the dump to know that
this could be just another scam. He looked at both of these men;
they seemed sincere enough. Of course, they had to be totally naïve
if they thought that anyone who actually owned large piles of cash
would ever let an idea like this see the light of day. Hell, the
ones that owned small piles consistently bought goods made overseas
in sweatshops, ensuring an enduring underclass in many of the
countries he visited. Then again, Ryan’s ideas were similar to many
of the ideals set forth in his organization’s charter, so it
shouldn’t be written off altogether. He had some questions in mind
that would show if these guys had really thought this through, or
whether it was just an academic exercise.

“Very impressive, Ryan,” he said quietly. “I
wouldn’t have thought that such ideas of revolution would be
brewing in the mind of a relatively well-off white guy. But then,
Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Gandhi were all upper-class, too, so it’s
not unprecedented that the desire to do good for those less
fortunate can reside anywhere.”

“What did you think, Dr. Cunningham?”
Estrada Palma asked.

“I gave him an A on the paper, which is fine
for him, but I think there’s more to it than that. I think it
actually has the potential to start some serious debate.”

“What do you mean?” Ryan asked.

“Well, think of it as an idea on the order
of magnitude of independence from England, or the end of apartheid,
or any idea which would on the face of it, seem entirely crazy,”
Cunningham explained. “All those ideas were probably shit-canned
the first time they were suggested, but the person or persons who
brought them up kept thinking about them and would not let them
die, even when they were put down, or jailed, or beaten. They knew
in their hearts that the idea was right, and they just kept pushing
and pushing until enough people had heard about it that a healthy
debate got going in society. And once those debates had reached a
conclusion, most people felt satisfied that they knew enough about
the subject to understand the final decision of the group at large,
even if they didn’t agree with it. So once the decision to go to
war was made, the majority of society could commit to the action
and make it come to pass. Ryan’s plan amplifies that concept, like
your union does, Luis, in that all people in the society are equal.
It is the goal of society to feed, clothe, and educate everyone,
and that the majority of people determine the outcome of society’s
existence. The potential of all humans working together instead of
all this infernal competition is awesome.”

Ryan and Estrada Palma listened carefully to
the professor’s words. They both had a great respect for the
teaching profession and felt vindicated by the academic’s approval.
Of course, neither of them realized that Cunningham was not exactly
the most respected of peers in his profession; most other academics
that knew of him regarded him as far too liberal for the rather
stuffy field of political science. But Ryan and Palma did not know
this and were just happy for some measure of encouragement. Once a
man grows to be a certain age and many of life’s initial triumphs
have come and gone, what he contributes to the world becomes more
important. Now, both Ryan and Palma felt that they still had to
make their mark and were looking for something of significance to
contribute. Palma had thought that he had found it in the Wobblies,
but it was becoming apparent that they would be forever consigned
to a footnote in history. He was too young to be a footnote and
would probably lose his job if he didn’t improve the union’s
membership numbers soon.

Palma took the opportunity to speak his
mind. “Well, what jumps out at me right away as blocks or flaws in
such a plan is why you suppose anyone who has gotten screwed all
his life by one authority or another is going to trust your
computers to feed his family? At least he knows if he does
backbreaking labor in the field or sweatshop, that cheap
son-of-a-bitch owner is going to pony up a few drachmas. With your
system, he’s got to trust that some unknown groups of people are
going to look at menial labor favorably and reward him with enough
goods to survive. That’s a leap of faith I don’t think you’ll find
too many of my members would be willing to make. How do you suppose
that people with little to no education are going to be able to
make decisions regarding laws and input them into a computer? If
they live in a shack with no electricity or water, how does this
computer even operate? If they do learn to operate it, what’s to
stop them from voting their class as the one that is making the
most contribution and deserving of the most assets? Now that I
think of it, that wouldn’t just apply to their class,
every
class of people would probably do that, making your system crash
shortly after launch,” Palma said breathlessly. He wanted to show
the two that he wasn’t just some pretty-boy, as he had been accused
of in the past.

Ryan and Cunningham sat back, somewhat
nonplussed. Of course, they knew the plan had flaws and
improbabilities, but until now, they had never thought of it in
practical terms.
Why should I have? It was just a paper,
right?
But the thing was, the more times it was repeated for
someone, the more it seemed to take on life and become something
that shouldn’t be allowed to just die without ever being heard.
Now, being exposed to this man, who dealt with the very people the
idea was created to serve, was kind of like an acid test of whether
it should be pursued further, or just left to fade away. He was a
little hurt by Palma’s frank appraisal. It made him seem like a
child who didn’t understand the real world. He felt that he had had
some hard knocks in life, but they probably paled in comparison
with the poverty and hopelessness Palma had experienced. Well, the
cat was out of the bag now, so he might as well go all the way and
see what the union leader really thought. It might have a big
effect on whether Ryan actually tried to expose this to more people
in a different way than he had started.