Subject: More About The Iaragans.  Part 4.                   June 3, 2007.

  This discusses how they are organized.

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                              CHAPTER 3
                            Planet Iarga

  After the Iargans had explained their concept of efficiency, they
turned without pause to their ideas of justice. In the same relentless
and efficient manner, I was pumped full of the laws upon which they based
their social and economic system in a very short time. The main theme was
the same: the efficiency of the justice. It's interesting to fully
understand what a cosmic universal economic system is. They explain it as
follows: an economic plan, aimed at efficiently satisfying man's needs so
that he is released from the tyranny of material things over his daily
life. In other words, if everyone has everything at his disposal, then the
acquisition of material goods is no longer of paramount importance. This
can only be achieved by providing "equal shares for everyone"; otherwise
envy will always exist. The culture then becomes more or less stable. I
nodded in agreement; mankind released from material problems, no envy or
greed, that was an answer.
  Only one small problem: how is it done? A little magic perhaps? There
are only two solutions: everyone must own the same; or no one must own
anything. The last is the most efficient. I sat bolt upright in my chair.
Were they telling me, a well-to-do company director, that I must dispense
with personal property? These beings were pure c-mmunists! It was useless
to carry on this conversation; it was getting me nowhere. I sat wondering
if I should voice my displeasure, but the explanation continued with the
following hypothesis: consequently, because money is an unmistakable form
of property, it should be abolished. They went even further. Personal
property is an indication of a very primitive level of culture. We had
enough intelligence to build rockets, but not enough to see that the laws
of the survival of the fittest and might is right must be abolished.
Perhaps I could explain to them how I thought we could survive with such a
system. Because though ours was a highly interesting system, what they had
found here in discrimination beat anything that they had ever encountered
before.
  Earth people seem to be continually occupied with thinking of new
discriminations, and using them as solutions to the ones that already
exist. Someone could not formulate any social or poli-ical plan without
someone else immediately attacking it. I really must not blame the
spacemen when they said that all this useless talking, the continual
working against one another, made them laugh. On the other hand, it was
more terrifying than amusing that power had now been added to this
difference in insight in the form of an ato-ic-weapon arsenal which had an
unimaginable destructive and poisonous effect. And all this under the
control of a few buttons! How was it possible that we could still sleep
peacefully? One learns to live with things that are impossible to change.
What a foolish idea; of course it was possible to change things. All we
had to do was to stop discriminating, simply change our laws. The concept
of private property, of course, stood in our way. But surely we could sort
that out. .... .1 didn't think so. Abolish personal possessions? Never
would that work. While we are all quite willing to improve the world, it
had to begin with our neighbor.
  Surely even a selfish man can understand that a world without
discrimination would be a better place in which to live. Perhaps we could
even create a prosperity that, universally speaking, could be ten times
better than that of the present? That they could understand. It was a pity
that the com-unistic ideals were lost in inefficiency, otherwise they
could have done a lot of good. It was a case of state-controlled economic
leaders making the decisions. My humor improved considerably; they were
not co-munists after all. But what were they, then? I will try, briefly,
to explain their system, as far as I was able to understand it.
  The total production of goods and services is, on Iarga, in the hands
of a very small number of huge companies, the "trusts." These are huge
organizations with millions of employees, active over their whole planet.
There are primary trusts, which distribute directly to the consumer, and
secondary trusts, which supply the primary. Nothing is paid for on
Iarga, only registered. What a consumer uses is registered in the computer
center in each of the house cylinders, and this may not exceed that to
which he has a right. These computers are coupled to the huge shopping
centers in each of the cylinders. You cannot buy anything.
  Large and expensive things, such as houses, cars, boats, valuable
artifacts, and so on, can only be hired. They call this the right of
acquisition. Less expensive things are not hired because that is not
efficient. They are registered for their total value and the right of use
remains for life. This is almost the same as personal ownership, except
that in the event of death, the goods are returned to the trusts. The last
category is articles for consumption and public services. Their total
value is registered, at which point right of usage becomes yours.
  As far as goods are concerned, you may not have more "in stock" than is
reasonable for your own use, otherwise the surplus can be confiscated. It
is practically the same sort of thing as a bank account, except that they
place the control on the expenditure, whereas we place it on the income.
This difference is worth a lot of thought. Legally, all the goods remain
the property of the trusts that supplied them. This means not only that
the trust is responsible for the upkeep, repair and the guarantee of a
certain minimum life, but they also take the total risk of loss or
destruction. Thus, all the articles are made to such a high standard that
repair is never necessary; repairs are not only expensive but terribly
inefficient. Insurance companies and repair firms would make a poor living
on Iarga! The trusts work on a cost-price basis whereby our term "profit"
is replaced by "the cost of continuation." Each trust was constantly
occupied with improving and expanding its production. Their economy was as
stable as a rock. They showed me two of their fully automatic factory
complexes, one that produced cars and another that produced the
trans-oceanic rail bridges.
  The star-shaped building had a diameter of about one kilometer and the
area around the factory was a maze of rails supporting hundreds of their
freighttorpedos which entered the building at the points of the star. The
film then moved to the factory's interior. The points of the star
contained the automatic unbading system that emptied the trains of their
raw materials, and this was the first time that I was able to hear
original sounds. Strange hollow knocking, interposed with screeches and
clicks, it was an inferno of noise that echoed strangely in the small
metal chamber in which I was sitting. The same realistic effect as the
film itself; left, right, above, below; I heard the sounds exactly as if I
had been present when they were made, and I began to hear exactly which
machine was making a particular noise. The size of the machine park was
indescribable. Boilers, collectors, hinging lids, ovens with white-hot
metal, presses that belched steam each time they opened; huge horseshoe
shaped sections with high-voltage insulators and spark-spitting machines.
Small, delicate machines turned, twisted or juggled with their products.
  I saw a few Iargans at work, dressed in orange colored overalls with
space-suit like helmets on their hs which left only the mouth and nose
uncovered; there were never more than about 40 workers outside the control
room. The production lines converged towards the middle of the factory and
it became clear that this factory produced automobiles. The most sinister,
I found, were the metal claws that functioned exactly the same way as a
human hand and arm. They were mounted on a system of arms and made
movements exactly as a living being would; large ones moved slowly, and
small ones moved at lightening speed, exactly synchronized with the
placing of a part. The machine completed its task piece for piece until a
complete product emerged at the end of the line, faultless, fast, and
untouched by "human" hand. It was mostly the claws that gave the
impression that this monster with all its noise, had an intellect of its
own. The two production lines joined exactly in the middle of the star,
the complete under section of the car, complete with wheels, seats,
steering and controls was joined in one operation to the upper section
with glass, doors and the rail skis. Here I saw the most impressive
battery of arms and claws, the finished automobiles were picked up by the
skis, swung round, and placed onto the rail system exactly next to the
previous one, with only a few millimeters between them.

Part 4.

John Winston.   johnfw@mlode.com