Nordenholt’s Million · Chapter
VII: Nordenholt's Million explained
Nordenholt launches a massive recruitment campaign, using psychological advertising and promises of high pay to enlist nearly five million people for his colony.
What happens
Nordenholt launches a massive recruitment campaign, using psychological advertising and promises of high pay to enlist nearly five million people for his colony. He reveals his foresight and manipulation of public opinion, including his plan to abandon traditional currency and labor laws once the colony is established. The chapter details his classification of recruits—married men, bachelors, and girls—and his rationale for building a stable, disciplined society.
Themes in this chapter
Authoritarianism and Despotism
Nordenholt's plan to suspend labor laws, control currency, and exclude union leaders reveals his authoritarian approach to building the colony.
Science and Technology
The recruitment focuses on industrial trades like mining, ironworking, and electrical machinery, highlighting the technological basis of the colony.
Human Nature and Brutality
Nordenholt exploits human instincts—fear of hunger, patriotism, and family bonds—to manipulate recruits, and plans to crush dissent through peer pressure.
Characters to notice
- Nordenholt
Demonstrates foresight and self-reliance by having posters ready immediately after the meeting; outlines his recruitment strategy and psychological manipulation of the public; reveals his plan to abandon money and labor laws in the colony.
- Flint
The narrator and confidant; calculates the cost of wages and questions Nordenholt; acts as intermediary with Trades Union officials; reflects on Nordenholt's genius.
Key passages
“Their appearance in the streets at that moment showed that they formed part of a plan which had been decided upon several days in advance, since time had to be allowed for printing and distributing them; whilst the fact that they were being posted up within two hours of the close of the meeting proved that Nordenholt had never had the slightest doubt of his success in dominating the Ministers.”
The posters appearing so quickly after the meeting proved Nordenholt had planned ahead and was confident he would control the government.
Highlights Nordenholt's foresight and self-reliance.
“Well, I'm slightly astonished, Flint. I thought you would have seen deeper into it than that. Hasn't it occurred to you that within six weeks money, as we understand it, will be valueless?”
Nordenholt explains that money will soon be worthless, so paying high wages now is irrelevant.
Reveals Nordenholt's long-term thinking and disregard for conventional economics.
“Once we are up North, men shall work for me as I choose and for what I choose. There will be no Factory Acts and Trades Union regulations or any other hindrance to our affairs.”
In the colony, Nordenholt will impose his own rules without labor protections.
Foreshadows the authoritarian regime to come.
“I want a solid backbone to this enterprise. I get that by selecting the married men. They have got a stake in the thing already in their wives, and especially in their children.”
Married men with families are chosen to provide stability and commitment to the colony.
Explains the rationale behind the recruitment classification.