The World of our Grandchildren

"Collective Buying will Solve Present Day
Economic Problems" Predicts British Author
In International Broadcast 

By H. G. Wells

Our grandchildren will live in a veritable Utopia, was the prophecy of H. G. Wells, prolific writer of novels and economist. Poverty and ugliness will vanish in a world which will care for its fellow men.

Mr. Wells' forecast was broadcast from London over station WABC and the Columbia Broadcasting System as one of a series of international broadcasts.
—Editor.

I HAVE been asked to talk to you about the "World of our Grandchildren," which means talking about the sort of world we are going to have for our grandchildren. What sort of world are we making for our grandchildren? That is a question that has a number of possible answers. If we make so-and-so today the world of our grandchildren will be so-and-so; if we do not make so-and-so, the world of our grandchildren will be quite different. It may vary from a world full of disaster to a world full of happiness. My answer depends on a lot of "ifs."

I have been especially asked not to speak about peace propaganda tonight. I am told you are tired of hearing it and tired of thinking about it. Still, war is the most important of those "ifs" on which my answer depends. If you do not want to hear about it or think about it, I see no good in talking about it.

So, in spending these fifteen minutes with you, I am going to assume that the world of the future is going to be without war, without disaster. We are going to assume that by the time of our grandchildren, the world will not only have solved the war problem, but also will have settled the second great riddle. You may ask me what is the second great riddle. The second great riddle is the economic riddle.

We are living in a world of bad times. This is true of America almost as it is of the Old World. Great multitudes of people are out of work. Many people are distressed by loss of capital and by the prevalent insecurity. Great stocks of goods remain unsold. Just what has brought about this situation, and how is it going to turn out?

There is too much goods that cannot be sold, too much cotton, too much iron and steel, and so on. We have all this merchandise. Now, on the other hand, there are swarms of people who cannot use up these things because they have not the money to buy them. We have the merchandise, but the people cannot buy it. There is not the ability to bring those two together. That is the fantastic paradox of world business today.

NOW, for the solution. I would like to suggest that this is the paradox and that a solution will be found. What is the cause of this extraordinary situation in the world today? We have mass production. We can produce the same quantity of stuff with fewer and fewer hands. We produce more and more, and we use fewer and fewer hands to do it.

I should like to give you a hint as to the kind of world that lies ahead of us. We have brought mass production to the highest level. We can produce goods for everybody. However, not one of us has given consideration to mass consumption. Let us begin to think about that. What do I mean by mass consumption? I suggest to you that mass consumption will balance mass production.

LET us consider first that familiar phrase mass production. There are employed in the great industrial organizations thousands and thousands of people to do similar work every working hour of the day. Let us try and turn that same proposition around into terms of consumption. What is the equivalent? The equivalent is not buying piece-meal but community buying. You ask me, how can the community buy houses or automobiles and all the other articles of mass production that people are so anxious to sell? That is a social and economic problem. I don't propose to state how. I am putting the idea before you, and I am merely going to assume that these difficulties will be solved by the time our grandchildren are ready to buy them. We have big production, but we still have to attain community buying. We are living in a world where production has been modernized, while buying is still in a state of medieval chaos. That is the way I will put it. Even now we have community buyers for certain things. For instance, you buy battleships on a community basis, and I buy battleships in the same way. If we can buy battleships and submarines and airships as a community, I refuse to believe that we cannot buy hotels, perfectly equipped houses and boots and shoes for all the children in the world in the same way. Collectively we could buy everything we could collectively produce. That is a great idea I am putting forward to you now.

For instance, while I am talking to you, there are scores of thousands of people living in nasty old tumbledown houses without proper windows, houses ten times older than the oldest automobile. There are also second-hand houses that have been put up piece-meal, floor by floor and room by room. Most of the people who live in them are badly in need of food, and they buy their clothes bit by bit. Why shouldn't we as a community take these people, whether they like it or not, and buy for them better houses, better clothing, better food. We can afford it. They should live in the best, and we can produce the best. I do not propose to pauperize them, I only propose to give them better value for their poor little bits of money, and make the district better and themselves better.

I DO not believe that the world which has produced the Ford factories will not produce parallel mass methods on the consuming side. I am sure that by the time of our grandchildren this problem also will be solved.

What sort of effects will the world of our grandchildren be sharing? If you look at the average contemporary town, you will see it is still in a frightful, stale, dingy, old-fashioned condition. There is always some little piece-meal change going on. There is a house here or a house there being rebuilt or a road torn up. Why shouldn't we have a new town as well as new houses? You cannot go one hundred yards from where you are without seeing houses that should be cleared away. You cannot walk any distance without seeing people wearing clothes that ought to make you feel uncomfortable. Engineers and architects will tell you that people ought to live in houses that are up-to-date. They have the plans to suit most any city perfectly. They even have the plans for the roads. They have the materials and the thousand devices to make these things possible. They have the ways and the means to make a town up-to-date.

We have not been educated in the method of community buying. We have plenty of battleships, but we do not have plenty of the proper houses and schools. For these constructive things, we have to wait many generations. The textile people will tell you of the most delightful gowns they could supply if only the people would buy and wear them.

So, my generation is going to die before our present day possibilities of peace are used. Our grandchildren will find out how to buy homes as we buy battleships, and there will be little houses and cities even more adapted to the ways of the world than we are living in today. They will have all the abundant delightful food that could be grown today that we cannot use because we do not know how to distribute it. The common people of today are certainly far better clothed than ever before. They have fresher material and finer and better garments. The change in this respect, even in my lifetime, has been immense. But, it is lacking to the change that must be. Bad distribution and our buying habits is what is holding us up. That is the cause of our difficulties. So. these lovely, wonderful cities, and this beautiful clothing I dream of and shall not see. will come into existence in the generation of our grandchildren. There will be finer clothing covering healthy bodies and healthy bodies mean healthy and happy minds.

THE clock tells me my time is coming to an end. This proposition I have been putting before you has been in my mind for a long time. Mass consumption, the idea that we might buy for all instead of each individual buying scraps for himself, is the idea I have in mind. That phrase, mass consumption, has excited my mind. Perhaps it will excite yours. Anyhow, this is the gist of what I have to say to vou now: What do you think of these two phrases, mass production and community buying? What do you think of them as doors towards relieving business of its present pessimism and slackishness?

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"THE inmost ego, possessing what I call the inescapable attribute, can never be a part of the physical world unless we alter the meaning of the word physical to spiritual." says Professor Sir Arthur Eddington in transatlantic speech which you will read in the February Radio Digest.