My Life and Work | Page 2

change. If I merely
want money the present system is all right; it gives money in plenty to
me. But I am thinking of service. The present system does not permit of
the best service because it encourages every kind of waste--it keeps
many men from getting the full return from service. And it is going
nowhere. It is all a matter of better planning and adjustment.
I have no quarrel with the general attitude of scoffing at new ideas. It is
better to be skeptical of all new ideas and to insist upon being shown
rather than to rush around in a continuous brainstorm after every new
idea. Skepticism, if by that we mean cautiousness, is the balance wheel
of civilization. Most of the present acute troubles of the world arise out
of taking on new ideas without first carefully investigating to discover
if they are good ideas. An idea is not necessarily good because it is old,
or necessarily bad because it is new, but if an old idea works, then the
weight of the evidence is all in its favor. Ideas are of themselves
extraordinarily valuable, but an idea is just an idea. Almost any one can
think up an idea. The thing that counts is developing it into a practical
product.
I am now most interested in fully demonstrating that the ideas we have
put into practice are capable of the largest application--that they have
nothing peculiarly to do with motor cars or tractors but form something
in the nature of a universal code. I am quite certain that it is the natural
code and I want to demonstrate it so thoroughly that it will be accepted,
not as a new idea, but as a natural code.
The natural thing to do is to work--to recognize that prosperity and
happiness can be obtained only through honest effort. Human ills flow
largely from attempting to escape from this natural course. I have no
suggestion which goes beyond accepting in its fullest this principle of
nature. I take it for granted that we must work. All that we have done
comes as the result of a certain insistence that since we must work it is
better to work intelligently and forehandedly; that the better we do our
work the better off we shall be. All of which I conceive to be merely
elemental common sense.
I am not a reformer. I think there is entirely too much attempt at

reforming in the world and that we pay too much attention to reformers.
We have two kinds of reformers. Both are nuisances. The man who
calls himself a reformer wants to smash things. He is the sort of man
who would tear up a whole shirt because the collar button did not fit the
buttonhole. It would never occur to him to enlarge the buttonhole. This
sort of reformer never under any circumstances knows what he is doing.
Experience and reform do not go together. A reformer cannot keep his
zeal at white heat in the presence of a fact. He must discard all facts.
Since 1914 a great many persons have received brand-new intellectual
outfits. Many are beginning to think for the first time. They opened
their eyes and realized that they were in the world. Then, with a thrill of
independence, they realized that they could look at the world critically.
They did so and found it faulty. The intoxication of assuming the
masterful position of a critic of the social system--which it is every
man's right to assume--is unbalancing at first. The very young critic is
very much unbalanced. He is strongly in favor of wiping out the old
order and starting a new one. They actually managed to start a new
world in Russia. It is there that the work of the world makers can best
be studied. We learn from Russia that it is the minority and not the
majority who determine destructive action. We learn also that while
men may decree social laws in conflict with natural laws, Nature vetoes
those laws more ruthlessly than did the Czars. Nature has vetoed the
whole Soviet Republic. For it sought to deny nature. It denied above all
else the right to the fruits of labour. Some people say, "Russia will have
to go to work," but that does not describe the case. The fact is that poor
Russia is at work, but her work counts for nothing. It is not free work.
In the United States a workman works eight hours a day; in Russia, he
works twelve to fourteen. In the United States, if a workman wishes to
lay off a day or a week, and is able to afford it, there is nothing to
prevent him. In Russia, under Sovietism, the workman goes to