Subversive | Page 6

aspirin and you can buy
it, in one hundred pound lots in polyethylene film bags, at about
fourteen cents a pound, or in carload lots under the chemical name of
acetylsalicylic acid, for eleven cents a pound. And any big chemical
corporation will sell you U.S.P. grade Milk of Magnesia at about six
dollars a ton. Its chemical name, of course, is magnesium hydroxide, or
Mg(OH){2}, and you'd have one thousand quarts in that ton. Buying it
beautifully packaged and fully advertised, you'd pay up to a dollar
twenty-five a pint in the druggist section of a modern ultra-market."
* * *
Tracy had heard enough. He said crisply, "All right, Mr. Flowers, of
Freer Enterprises, now let me ask you something: Do you consider this
country prosperous?"
Flowers blinked. Of a sudden, the man across from him seemed to have
changed character, added considerable dynamic to his make-up. He
flustered, "Yes, I suppose so. But it could be considerably more
prosperous if--"
Tracy was sneering. "If consumer prices were brought down drastically,
eh? Mr. Flowers, you're incredibly naïve when it comes to modern
economics. Do you realize that one of the most significant
developments, economically speaking, took place in the 1950s;

something perhaps more significant than the development of atomic
power?"
Flowers blinked again, mesmerized by the other's new domineering
personality. "I ... I don't know what you're talking about."
"The majority of employees in the United States turned from blue
collars to white."
Flowers looked pained. "I don't--"
"No, of course you don't or you wouldn't be participating in a
subversive attack upon our economy, which, if successful, would lead
to the collapse of Western prosperity and eventually to the success of
the Soviet Complex."
Mr. Flowers gobbled a bit, then gulped.
"I'll spell it out for you," Tracy pursued. "In the early days of capitalism,
back when Marx and Engels were writing such works as Capital, the
overwhelming majority of the working class were employed directly in
production. For a long time it was quite accurate when the political
cartoonists depicted a working man as wearing overalls and carrying a
hammer or wrench. In short, employees who got their hands dirty,
outnumbered those who didn't.
"But with the coming of increased mechanization and eventually
automation and the second industrial revolution, more and more
employees went into sales, the so-called service industries, advertising
and entertainment which has become largely a branch of advertising,
distribution, and, above all, government which in this bureaucratic age
is largely a matter of regulation of business and property relationships.
As automation continued, fewer and fewer of our people were needed
to produce all the commodities that the country could assimilate under
our present socio-economic system. And I need only point out that the
average American still enjoys more material things than any other
nation, though admittedly the European countries, and I don't exclude
the Soviet Complex, are coming up fast."

Flowers said indignantly, "But what's this charge that I'm participating
in a subversive--"
"Mr. Flowers," Tracy overrode him, "let's not descend to pure maize in
our denials of the obvious. If this outfit of yours, Freer Enterprises, was
successful in its fondest dreams, what would happen?"
"Why, the consumers would be able to buy commodities at a fraction of
the present cost!"
Tracy half came to his feet and pounded the table with fierce emphasis.
"What would they buy them with? They'd all be out of jobs!"
Frederic Flowers bug-eyed him.
Tracy sat down again and seemingly regained control of himself. His
voice was softer now. "Our social system may have its strains and
tensions, Mr. Flowers, but it works and we don't want anybody
throwing wrenches in its admittedly delicate machinery. Advertising is
currently one of the biggest industries of the country. The
entertainment industry, admittedly now based on advertising, is
gigantic. Our magazines and newspapers, employing hundreds of
thousands of employees from editors right on down to newsstand
operators, are able to exist only through advertising revenue. Above all,
millions of our population are employed in the service industries, and
in distribution, in the stock market, in the commodity markets, in all the
other branches of distribution which you Freer Enterprises people want
to pull down. A third of our working force is now unemployed, but
given your way, it would be at least two thirds."
Flowers, suddenly suspicious, said, "What has all this to do with the
Department of Internal Revenue, Mr. Tracy?"
Tracy came to his feet and smiled ruefully, albeit a bit grimly.
"Nothing," he admitted. "I have nothing at all to do with that
department. Here is my real card, Mr. Flowers."
The Freer Enterprises man must have felt a twinge of premonition even

as he took it up, but the effect was still enough to startle him. "Bureau
of