Page:Neurath O. (1942) International Planning for Freedom.pdf/17

438 We could imagine the possibility that world citizens could form their own groups wherever they were, even in their homelands, if they wanted to do so, as people today may form religious communities of whatever kind, national and international. All these possibilities are imagined in a world without intentional restriction of production, thus in a world in which manpower will be wanted.

Certain states may not permit emigration for any reason whatsoever, but laws prohibiting immigration will presumably be mitigated. In the traditional order, workers with lower standard of living immediately endangered the standard of workers with higher standard of living. When they were prevented from migrating (e.g. by the immigration law of the U.S.A), new inner tension arose (e.g. in Italy). These and similar difficulties are to be expected in a society in which up to the present mostly the principle ruled:  'sauve qui peut'  and the devil take the hindmost, and in which the defeated so often had to listen to wise words such as 'survival of the fittest', when 'poor' persons with talent were pushed aside by 'rich' nonentities.

We stressed the point that comprehensive planning is not necessarily connected with a change in private property; if in a society based on planning, there remained 'rich' and 'poor', they would hold their position not owing to the impersonal automatism of the market, but by, as it were, public decrees. Certain tensions, related to 'economic crises' would be avoided by means of planning, but the old tension between the 'rich' and the 'poor' would remain. There are already voices coming from Conservative quarters, which suggest at least a radical reduction of the margin between 'high' and 'low' standards of living.

Let us even imagine that all states were organized on a socialist basis - then again tension would arise between the 'Have' and 'Have-not' nations in analogy to the tension between 'rich' and 'poor' in the same society. We should not leave unmentioned the point that, within a socialist society, very grave conflicts between groups may be imagined. We may think that the way in which these conflicts will be solved will perhaps depend upon the traditions of the respective nations.

Since no scientific measures exist which enable us to determine the scaling of 'wages' in relation to the different types of work, collisions must be expected - though there will not be two fronts, but dozens of fronts and overlapping conflicts if there are democratic institutions. Some