Whatever might be done toward making work
agreeable, it is to be presumed that some trades would
always remain unpleasant. Men could be attracted
into these by higher pay or shorter hours, instead of
being driven into them by destitution. The community
would then have a strong economic motive
for finding ways of diminishing the disagreeableness
of these exceptional trades.
There would still have to be money, or something
analogous to it, in any community such as we are
imagining. The Anarchist plan of a free distribution
of the total produce of work in equal shares
does not get rid of the need for some standard of
exchange value, since one man will choose to take his
share in one form and another in another. When
the day comes for distributing luxuries, old ladies
will not want their quota of cigars, nor young men
their just proportion of lap-dog; this will make it
necessary to know how many cigars are the equivalent
of one lap-dog. Much the simplest way is to
pay an income, as at present, and allow relative
values to be adjusted according to demand. But if
actual coin were paid, a man might hoard it and in
time become a capitalist. To prevent this, it would
be best to pay notes available only during a certain
period, say one year from the date of issue.
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