The Aegis Solution (45 page)

"You know I disagree, but tell me, how would this be done?"

"A graduated tax, increasing to a higher rate the more they make."

"Since people always work in their own self-interest, what happens under a graduated tax is that
their need, as they perceive it, to make even more money increases as they are taxed at the higher rates.
They must redouble their profits just to compensate for what is being taken from them. So that would
not solve the problem, as you perceive it; it would exacerbate it."

"Not if once they passed a threshold, a certain income level, the tax rate became one hundred
percent. Then there would be nothing they could do, no amount they could make which would
compensate for that."

"That's true. If the government decided the maximum that people should be allowed to make, and
took everything above that amount from them, you are absolutely right; they would no longer have any
self-interested motive to cross that line. By the way, what would that number be?"

Mildred began to answer and then stopped herself.

"Come on, Mildred, what's the number? Is it a billion dollars a year?"

"No, that's much too high."

"One hundred million?"

"Too high."

"A million?"

"No…yes. I'm not sure."

"Aren't there several people on your side of the ideological fence who believe that a million dollars
is much more than a person needs to make?"

"That's true. There are."

"So even if you felt that a million was a good threshold, there would be others who fought against
you, maintaining that such an amount was extravagant?"

"Yes."

"For the purpose of our little chat here, let's say that you got your way – that the threshold was set
at a million dollars, and every dollar in excess of that amount had to be turned over to the government.
What do you think would happen next?"

"Well, I think that the wealthy would have no choice but to share it, pass it down to the
employees."

"So, back to your ‘wealthy businessman'...you think that he would simply share it? Put it in a
pension plan or a profit-sharing plan?"

"Or give higher wages and benefits."

"He wouldn't."

"What do you think he would do?"

"He would leave. He would leave the United States and find a country which allowed him to make
more money, gain more recognition, earn more prestige."

She began to rebut him, when he interrupted her. "Mildred, just as your residents left to come to
Madison."

She stopped. As Mildred had plunged, over the past several minutes, into the familiar and somehow
comfortable debate with her brother, she had briefly forgotten about Walden. The reality of the failure
of the community – her failure – came flooding back to her.

His voice once again becoming gentle, Milton continued, "Aegis has been an experiment, an
experiment to determine human nature, whether we are born with exceptionalism or we are not. I
believe that it has to be earned, to be striven for. I believe that the flaws and frailties which produce the
other behaviors, the nasty and unpleasant ones, are the natural condition and that it takes hard work and
consistent effort to overcome them, to drive them out of oneself. It is that basic difference between us
which prompts those of your philosophy to eschew the concept of an exceptional person. Because if
all people are born with it, by definition they cannot be exceptional; they would merely be normal."

She started to speak, but he cut her off. "But watching, enforcing, disciplining, grading, and the rest
are only half of the equation. The other half is to reward, since people will only operate, with rare
exceptions, in their own self-interest. That was what intrigued me when we came to Aegis and when
Walden and Madison came into existence."

"What's that?"

"The normal, traditional ways to reward were eliminated. We have no currency. No one here can
attain or exceed that million-dollar cap you propose. The housing, clothing, and food are all provided.
There is no access for the purchasing of status items. To be honest, Mildred, I was initially convinced
that Aegis was a ready-made environment, a perfect medium, for you and your belief structure."

"I remember," she said, a slight trace of a smile coming to her face. "Not too long after we arrived,
you shouted at me that Aegis was nothing but a commune."

He smiled in return. "It definitely looked that way. I was certain that your philosophy would be the
one which prevailed in here, rather than mine."

Her smile quickly left, replaced by an expression of forlorn dejection. "It didn't work out that way,
did it? Walden is essentially dead. Less than forty people left. How many do you have in Madison?"

"Well over six thousand. You still haven't really told me what happened."

She paused for a moment to formulate her words before surprising him. "I was hoping you could
tell me what happened."

"What do you mean?"

"Milton, don't be disingenuous. It was hard enough for me to say it. I don't want to repeat it."

Pierce took a deep breath, using the moment to organize his thoughts. "All right. You obviously
didn't lose many to ZooCity."

She nodded to indicate her concurrence.

"That leaves Madison or death as the only other main choices. From the time we initially formed
our enclaves, Madison has picked up many of your people. From the beginning it has been a fairly
steady stream. The number we've lost to you has been negligible, especially if you consider how many
of those changed their minds within a month or so and returned."

"Why do you think that was, Milton?"

"I don't have to guess. With our residents who told us they were leaving, we did an exit interview
whenever they agreed. We also did a formal interview when they returned. Of the few who left, their
reason was generally an emotional reaction to what they felt had been harsh treatment on our part."

"And why did they come back to you?"

"Overwhelmingly, the reason they gave was that, although in Madison they became occasionally
irritated by the standards and expectations imposed upon them, they found that they could not tolerate
the complete absence of any standards or expectations they encountered at Walden."

"That's not…." Mildred halted in mid-sentence. "Go on."

"We also interviewed those who started out at Walden and relocated to us. There was, again, a
consistent message. The recurring theme in their answers was a feeling of frustration, of pointlessness
over there."

"Pointlessness?"

"Do you remember a behavioral study performed many years ago where they took a group of
college students who badly needed money, and paid them quite well? I think it was three times the
current minimum wage. All they had to do was spend every morning out in a field digging holes. They
would break for lunch and, after they had eaten, their afternoon was spent filling up the same holes."

"Vaguely."

"Within ten days they had all quit, despite the fact that they needed the income. When asked why,
the reason given by almost all of the students was the same. They couldn't stand doing something
meaningless…pointless."

"How does that translate to Madison and Walden?"

"That was my struggle at the beginning. As I said earlier, everything was provided for us. All of the
normal yardsticks for success, for achievement, for distinguishing oneself were not viable here. For you,
it was perfect. You created an environment of harmony and equality, an egalitarian Shangri-La. After
some thrashing about and some false starts, we created the Madison you see now."

"You created boot camp." Her tone was gentle, without a hint of ire.

With a grin, he acknowledged her comment, "In a sense, yes. We had to find a way to give people
something to work toward, a way to be recognized and acknowledged. We began small. Creating a basic
education curriculum, we opened our first school. Attendance was mandatory. Achievement was tracked
and published. Degrees, and their accompanying status, were earned and granted. We also created work
for people to do. Frankly, much of it was busy work, although we made sure not to fall into the trap of
digging and refilling holes. We instituted a political structure with elected representatives for each block
of residential units, as well as a security team with ranks.

"In short, hierarchies began to form and crystallize. The community had leaders, second- and
third-tier leaders, work supervisors, scholars…the list goes on. And with each of the distinctions came
privileges, some of them amorphous, some quite obvious. We randomly selected secondary corridors
within Madison and made them accessible only to the higher-tier citizens. They got preferential seating
at the common-area dining rooms and at any meetings or events. Things like that."

"You created haves and have-nots."

"We did, essentially out of thin air. But what we actually created were goals. Individuals on a lower
tier of the hierarchy, who wanted to be a part of the group receiving the best seats, worked harder until
they reached their goal. We provided challenges. Almost all of our residents accepted the challenges."

"And those who did not?"

"We found, within the concept, a method for taking things a step further, a way to utilize our
structure to create a gentle form of punishment. If we have a citizen who does not participate, does not
buy into our social structure…who is, essentially, a slacker…then he or she is assigned to do the laundry
for one or more of the others, or, perhaps, clean their quarters."

"You make the person a servant?"

"We do. And before you say anything else, in almost all cases, it works. The people soon become
functional, participating members of the group, and those tasks are eliminated. We actually have a
ceremony for them as they come out of subservience. The entire population shows up to honor,
welcome, and applaud them for making the transition. It is always quite an emotional moment for them
to be accepted and embraced enthusiastically by the others."

"But why make them servants? Isn't that humiliating for them?"

"Of course it is. It's supposed to be humiliating. In addition to the unpleasant duties, they must also
wear a bright red shirt at all times, denoting their status."

"Supposed to be humiliating? Why? It seems as if it would be damaging to them."

"It is the humiliation that shocks them out of their lethargy. It is the impetus which drives them to
make the changes in their lives needed to escape from it. Without it, there is no motivation. Mildred,
we are back to the issue of human nature. It is normal to be ashamed in a situation such as I've
described. But it is also normal to want to end the shame, to escape from it, to rise above it. Remember
when our father left our mother and she went on welfare and food stamps?"

"Of course, I do. I'll never forget that time. It was horrible!"

"You're right. It was. Our mother came back from the store completely humiliated by the looks and
even the occasional comments from the others in the cashier's line when she paid with food stamps.
The same was true when she cashed the welfare check."

"It wasn't right! She was in that position through no fault of her own."

"I know. I agree. I think much of the way we both are today is a result of watching her come home
and cry during those times. But you and I learned very different lessons from that experience. You were
mortified and vowed that society should never put any citizen through that again. I realized that it was
the shame which caused her to buckle down and work very hard to make certain that she never had to
ask for public assistance again."

Mildred listened to his words, saying nothing.

"The culture moved in your direction. Now that times have changed, now that the stigma is
removed and the outward evidence of public assistance is hidden, how many people, who are standing
in that cashier's line and are allowed to pay with a debit card instead of the conspicuous food stamps,
are still on assistance because they don't feel the shame our mother felt?

"The shame, the social ostracism, is necessary. Without it, you not only lose the motivation to
escape from the assistance, you begin to feel that you are entitled to receive it. I'll be honest, the concept
did not have a one-hundred-percent success rate. There were a few on whom it failed."

"What did you do to them?"

Milton permitted a slight smile to cross his face. "They left and joined Walden. Within a month,
maybe two, they returned. And when they came back, they were ready to join in our society.

"I took a very long time to answer your question as to why I thought Walden failed. But Madison
is only accountable for a portion of the population loss from there. I said at the beginning, the only
other way you could lose people was through death. I would know nothing about that. Please tell me,
has it been an issue?"

"Almost from the beginning, suicide has been, if you'll excuse the expression, a way of life at
Walden. A week would never pass that didn't include the loss of some of our residents, sometimes
several."