Looking Backward · Chapter
XXII explained
Julian West and Dr.
What happens
Julian West and Dr. Leete discuss the economic superiority of the new social system over the 19th century. Dr. Leete explains how the nation's wealth has increased through elimination of debt, military spending, crime, idleness, and wasteful distribution, and how cooperation and public investment have replaced competition and private hoarding.
Themes in this chapter
Economic System and Cooperation
Dr. Leete contrasts the wasteful, competitive system of the 19th century with the cooperative, efficient system of the year 2000.
Critique of Capitalism and Consumerism
Sharp critique of 19th-century capitalism as a system of mutual throat-cutting, waste, and periodic crises.
Labor and Dignity of Work
Discussion of how eliminating idlers and wasteful occupations increases productive labor and national wealth.
Characters to notice
- Julian West
Questions Dr. Leete about the source of the nation's wealth, contrasting it with 19th-century poverty.
- Dr. Leete
Explains the economic efficiencies of the new system, including elimination of debt, military, crime, and wasteful distribution, and the benefits of cooperation.
Key passages
“Selfishness was their only science, and in industrial production selfishness is suicide. Competition, which is the instinct of selfishness, is another word for dissipation of energy, while combination is the secret of efficient production.”
In the 19th century, selfishness was the guiding principle, but in industry it is self-destructive; competition wastes energy, while cooperation is the key to productivity.
Dr. Leete's core economic argument against competition and for cooperation.
“The day dream of the nineteenth century producer was to gain absolute control of the supply of some necessity of life, so that he might keep the public at the verge of starvation, and always command famine prices for what he supplied.”
The ideal of a 19th-century producer was to monopolize a necessity and charge exorbitant prices, even causing scarcity.
Critique of monopolistic practices in 19th-century capitalism.