Time Will Run Back

Chapter 27

HE learned that the waitress and the cook had been taking turns in supplementing their meager rations by eating the leftovers from his meals. That night had been the cook’s turn, but the waitress had been tempted by hunger and the untouched ice cream.

When Peter reported the incident the following morning, Adams seemed cold-blooded.

“Remember the day Bolshekov’s men tried to machinegun me? I told you your turn would come next. Well, it came. We have both had miraculous escapes. It would be too much for either of us to expect to repeat the miracle.”

“What can we do about it?”

“The first thing you must do, chief, is to change the cook and everyone who had access or could have had access to the kitchen. Everybody should be thoroughly screened by Stalenin’s guard. You have been amazingly careless. Stalenin used to have a special food taster at his desk.”

“Yes; he still has him at his bedside for meals.”

“I keep a dog,” Adams continued, “that nobody but myself is allowed to feed. He gets a little taste of everything before I try it.”

“How long have you been doing that?” “As far back as I can remember. Practically every member of the Politburo has to take similar precautions. I’ll send a dog over to you, if you want. It’s better to have an ugly one, so you don’t get too fond of him.” So this, thought Peter, is the life that everyone else in Won-world envies.

“Of course, the only real remedy, as I advised you long ago, chief, was to throw Bolshekov out; but he has since made his position so solid with the army that you couldn’t remove him now without unleashing a civil war.... A war which, I think frankly, you and I would lose.”

“Then what can I do now?”

“Your only choice is to do to him what he has been trying to do to you. You had better beat him to it!” “Have him assassinated?” Adams nodded. Peter shook his head. “I’ve told you time and time again,

Adams, that I just can’t resort to such methods. I don’t believe in them. Means determine ends. We are trying to make a better society. A society founded on violence, bloodshed, trickery and murder would be certain to be loathsome. It would not be worth creating. It would not be worth living in.”

“Well, if you don’t follow my advice, chief, you won’t be living long in this society, I assure you.”

Peter was beginning to find the subject too uncomfortable.

“Let’s go back to where we left off yesterday, Adams.” There was just a touch of command in his tone. “How are we going to solve the problem of economic calculation? How are we going to determine just what commodities to produce, just how much to produce of each of the hundreds of different commodities, and just what means and methods of production are in each case the most economical?”

Adams looked at Peter incredulously, then seemed resignedly to decide to go along with him.

“Isn’t there any way of solving the problem directly, chief? Just by deciding, for example, what things are probably most needed, and how many men, how many machines of different kinds ought to be used in producing each of them—just as we have been doing?”

“We have already decided, Adams, that we are working completely in the dark. You simply can’t add things that are unlike each other. Or subtract, or multiply, or divide them, or even, in any meaningful quantitative way, compare them. You can’t add pigs to pears, or subtract houses from horses, or multiply tractors by toothbrushes.”

“I’ll try again, chief. How about comparing things in relation to the average labor-time necessary to make each of them?”

“We’ve already been over all that ground, too,” said Peter. “We found that the labor-time of an expert or a genius is incomparably more important than that of a bungler. We found that all sorts of other things besides labor go into producing goods—such as raw materials, machinery and land. And we found, finally, that unless we have some common unit—and that common unit is not labor-time!—we can’t measure the relative amounts of raw materials, machinery and land that go into producing different commodities.”

“Then why not just find out by trial and error, chief, whether or not we’re making the right things in the right proportions and by the most economical methods? Trial and error! That’s the human method of learning. That’s the method of science.”

“‘Trial and error’ doesn’t mean anything, Adams, unless you have some definite way of recognizing and measuring the extent of the error. Otherwise you don’t know what to correct for in your next trial. If I’m shooting at a target, and my shot falls approximately a foot below the bull’s eye, I try to raise my next shot by a foot; if my shots are going too far to the left, I aim more to the right. If a chef broils a steak and finds it overdone, he leaves the next steak over the fire a shorter time. And so on. But what standard have you got for error in the problem we are trying to solve? How do you know that the production of some particular item is costing more than it is worth? How do you know whether or not you are adopting the most economical method of making that item or any other item?”

Adams was silent for a while. He thoughtfully took a few pinches of snuff. Peter resorted to a cigarette, and blew the smoke toward the ceiling.

“I have it! Adams, I have it!” he said suddenly. “I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before. You’re right. Trial and error! We can use the method of trial and error—and combine it with a price system!”

“Now that sounds interesting, chief. Just how would you do that?”

“Well, let’s think it out. We allowed people first to exchange their ration coupons and then to exchange their consumption goods. And as a result a market was established. Certain exchange ratios, certain relative market values, established themselves. And now we know, for example, that people considered collectively value a chair by four times as much as a shirt, and so on. So we now know how much consumption goods are worth. But we still don’t know how much it costs us to make them. But suppose we knew how much production goods were worth? Suppose we knew the exchange value, the market value, of each piece of land, of each tool or machine, of each hour of every man’s labor-time? Then we would be able to calculate costs! Then we would be able to know, for each particular commodity, whether or not the value of the finished product exceeded the value of the costs that went into it—whether or not the value of a given output exceeded the value of a given input.”

“You’ve got hold of something there!” said Adams, almost eagerly. Then his countenance slowly fell. “But I don’t see how we can work it out!”

“Establish a market in production goods!” exclaimed Peter.

“How?”

“At present, Adams, the Central Planning Board decides how much shall be produced of hundreds of different commodities. It allots production quotas to each industry. The heads of these industries in turn allot production quotas to the individual factories. Then, on this basis, so much raw material is allotted to each industry and each factory and so many workers are allotted to each industry and each factory. And so on. Now, let’s change this. Let each industry bid for raw materials and bid for labor, as people do in the consumption goods market, and let these raw materials and this labor go to the highest bidder!”

“At what prices, chief? At what wage rates?”

“Why, at the highest prices and the highest wage rates that are bid!” “In what would these prices and wages be payable?” “Why... in cigarette packages, I presume.” Adams looked dubious. “Have we got that many cigarette packages?”

“We wouldn’t have to exchange actual cigarette packages,” suggested Peter. “We could just cancel debts and credits against each other. In other words, cigarette packages would not be so much a—medium of exchange as just a—a standard of value. They would enable us to keep accounts, by supplying a common unit of measurement.”

Adams still looked dubious. “You say that raw materials and labor would go to the industry managers who bid the highest prices or wage rates. What would prevent prices and wage rates from soaring to the skies?”

“Why, Adams, if a manager bid too high for raw materials or for labor, then his production costs would exceed the value of his product; his input would exceed his output.”

“So?”

“So—he would be removed for incompetence.”

“And suppose the manager bid too low?”

“Then he would not get either labor or raw materials.”

“And the product assigned to him would never be produced?”

Peter was stumped. “I suppose,” he conceded, “we would have to remove him also for incompetence.”

“It might be even more effective, chief, to have him shot.”

“At that rate our managers would have to be awfully good guessers, Adams!”

“The survival of the fittest, chief.”

“Or the luckiest!”

They were both silent again.

“No,” admitted Peter after the pause, “I’m afraid my analogy was a false one. We can have markets in consumption goods because these goods belong to the people who are exchanging them. Therefore a man will only exchange a given quantity of, say, beets, that he does not value so much, for a given quantity of, say, apricots, if he himself really values that acquired quantity of apricots more than that surrendered quantity of beets—and also if he doesn’t think he can get any more than that for his beets. Now it isn’t hard for a man to tell whether he himself likes apricots better than beets, or any commodity A better than commodity B. But for a man, a manager, to bid for something he won’t really own by offering something else that he doesn’t really own...”

“I think, chief,” put in Adams, “that you’re too ready to abandon your own idea. I’m beginning to think it’s very promising. Now when your managers bid against each other—”

“By the way, Adams, it just occurred to me: What would these managers have to bid with? What would they have to offer in exchange for the raw materials and labor they wanted?”

He seemed unaware that he was now taunting Adams with the same question that Adams had stopped him with a little while back.

“Well, they will just... name figures,” suggested Adams vaguely. “Or,” he added suddenly, “maybe the Central Planning Board could allocate a certain hypothetical number of packages of cigarettes to each industry and each factory manager to use for bidding purposes.”

“Then each manager’s bids, Adams, would be limited by the amount of cigarettes the CPB allotted to him?”

Adams nodded.

“Then why not save needless complication,” suggested Peter, “by having the board continue to allot the raw materials and labor directly, as it does now? After all, it would only be doing the same thing indirectly by allotting the cigarettes to the managers to pay for the raw materials and labor.”

“There’s a difference, chief. The cigarette allotment system would leave more room for managerial discretion. True, the managers would still be limited in the total resources they could apply to the output of the particular product assigned to them. But at least they, instead of the CPB, would decide the proportions in which they would use raw materials and machinery and labor, or one raw material instead of another, et cetera.”

“Your system, Adams—it’s your system, now that I’ve seen the flaws—your system wouldn’t work. The labor and raw materials would simply go to the most irresponsible and reckless managers, and the prices would be determined by the most irresponsible and reckless managers.”

“But, chief, we have already suggested removal or liquidation of the managers whose costs exceed the value of their output!”

“You are not suggesting any incentives for any manager to do the right thing, Adams, but only the most extreme penalties if he does the wrong thing. And under your system very few managers could help doing the wrong thing. Those who bid too high for their materials or labor would be removed or shot because their input exceeded their output; but those who bid too little for materials or labor would be removed or shot because they would not get enough material or labor to fill their production quotas.”

“We could grade the punishment, chief. We could shoot the manager for a big mistake but merely remove him for a little one.”

“All right,” said Peter sarcastically. “So if the value of a manager’s input exceeded that of his output by only 1 or 2 per cent, we would simply remove him; but if his input value exceeded his output value by 100 per cent, we would shoot him. Now, at just what percentage of excess of costs over product would you place the dividing line between removal and liquidation?”

“Maybe we could have graduated jail sentences.”

“You certainly think of the most amazing ways, Adams, of attracting managerial talent. I suppose you think all the finest young workers will be eager to draw attention to themselves as possible managers—provided, of course, they have sufficiently strong suicidal tendencies.”

Adams took a couple of pinches of snuff and paced up and down. “Suppose we abandon that whole approach.... Suppose we let the Central Planning Board set the prices?”

“How would they set them?”

“They would just guess at what the prices ought to be.”

“At what hundreds of different prices ought to be?”

Adams nodded.

“And how would they know, Adams, whether their guesses were right or wrong?”

“Well,” said Adams slowly, apparently trying to think the thing out as he paced and talked, “if the prices were right, then the results would show that the value of the output of each commodity exceeded the costs that went into producing that commodity. There would be a balance between the supply of and the demand for each commodity at those prices. But if the price set by the Central Planning Board for any raw material or machine or worker were wrong... then the result would show either that the value of the input exceeded the value of the output, or, on the other hand, that the value of the output exceeded the value of the input by too much!”

“But how would you know what was wrong, Adams? How would you know where the mistake had occurred—if there really was a mistake? Suppose, for example, that the value of a particular output exceeded the value of a particular input ‘by too much.’ How would you know what had caused that?”

“We would know, chief, that one or more of the factors of production was underpriced.”

“And how would you know, Adams, which factor it was—whether the labor, the raw materials, the machinery, or the land? Or which raw material? Or which group of workers. Or if several factors were underpriced, how would you know which ones and by how much?”

Adams did not answer.

“And how would you know that the trouble was underpricing of the factors of production?” pursued Peter. “Might it not be just because that manager was particularly efficient, or because a particularly efficient method of production was being followed? Or merely because that commodity, relatively speaking, was being underproduced? And conversely, suppose that the cost of the input exceeded the value of the output? You would have the same problems in reverse. How would you know whether that result was caused by the overpricing of the factors of production, or of some particular factor, and which, and by how much—or whether the whole thing wasn’t caused by a particularly inefficient method of production or an inefficient manager?”

Again Adams was silent for a time.

“You know,” he said at length, “I’ve just thought of something. There’s a very clever Italian fellow in the Central Planning Board with whom I’ve been discussing planning problems. He’s a brilliant mathematician. He’s tremendously enthusiastic about the markets you established in consumption goods—fascinated by them. And now that I remember it, he came forward independently a few weeks ago and actually suggested setting up a system of pricing for production goods and factors of production. He claims he can work it all out by mathematics.”

“Why didn’t you tell me about him before?”

“To tell you the truth, chief, I hadn’t the slightest idea what he was driving at, at the time. I couldn’t understand his mathematics and didn’t want to admit it. And anyway, I just put him down as a sort of screwball.”

“And now?”

“Now, I’m just beginning to think that maybe I was wrong.... Not until this conversation now did I have any idea of what he may have been driving at.”

“What’s his name?”

“Baronio.”

“Let’s talk with him by all means.”

Peter glanced at his wrist watch. “I’m due to be at dinner with my father in fifteen minutes. Why not bring Baronio with you tomorrow?”

When Adams left, Sergei came in. “One of the new guards we had taken on to protect His Supremacy, Your Highness, turned out to be an agent of Bolshekov’s. He had undoubtedly been sent here to assassinate His Supremacy.”

“Where is he?”

“When our guards started to arrest him, he tried to shoot them but got shot himself. It happened in the barracks rooms just across the street. I don’t think it wise for us to publish anything about the incident—if Your Highness agrees.”

“Does His Supremacy know?”

“I thought Your Highness might not want to upset him with such knowledge.” “Very good, Sergei.” I have been given a weight of responsibility, thought Peter once more, that is just too big.

He was awake most of the night.