Looking Backward Chapter 8-14

Question 1

Leete explains that there is no longer any need for money to facilitate exchanges because the nation is the only

Answer 1

producer and distributor of goods and services

Question 2

Each year, the nation’s wealth is divided evenly. Each citizen is issued a credit card for his share of the nation’s wealth to purchase the goods and services he desires. Credit is not transferable, so there is no buying and selling between

Answer 2

private citizens.

Question 3

The credit is more than enough to fulfill a citizen’s needs, but there are provisions to manage the credit of those who spend recklessly. At the end of the year, any surplus credit returns to the nation. All citizens perform the same amount of labor, because

Answer 3

the nation expects every citizen to do his best with his skills and abilities.

Question 4

Julian asks why the average citizen would work so hard if he is guaranteed to receive the same pay as anyone else. Leete is surprised that Julian seems to think that only fear of

Answer 4

poverty and love of luxury can motivate men to do their best.

Question 5

He reminds Julian that honor is also a motivation, pointing out the heroic acts of military men as an example. Now, a citizen’s labor for the nation is the only means to gain

Answer 5

honor and distinction.

Question 6

Each worker is assigned a grade and a class within his grade in recognition of his skill and effort. At fixed intervals, every worker is re-evaluated. Workers of higher standing are given

Answer 6

first choice as to which part of their chosen industry to work in.

Question 7

For small, but still praiseworthy performance, there are numerous prizes and awards. Likewise, there are proportional punishments for those who fail to do their duty. Workers of higher grades are officers in the industrial army, and their performance is measured by

Answer 7

the work of the men under their command.

Question 8

Those who are handicapped are given tasks suitable to their abilities. Those who cannot perform any tasks are not required to work. Julian is astonished that those who do not work can still

Answer 8

claim an equal share of the nation’s wealth as a right. Leete replies that even able-bodied men in a society derive benefits from the labor and skills of others.

Question 9

Julian accompanies Edith on a shopping trip to her ward’s distribution center, a beautiful, impressive public building. The nation tries to ensure that every citizen is

Answer 9

within walking distance of a distribution center.

Question 10

After inspecting an astonishing variety of samples, Edith gives her order to the clerk, who transmits it by vacuum tube to Boston’s central storehouse. Her goods will be delivered to her house before

Answer 10

she gets home.

Question 11

The selection of goods is exactly the same in every distribution center, and even isolated villages are connected to storehouses by the tube system. Edith tells Julian that a citizen has 24-hour access to

Answer 11

professionally-performed music, transmitted over a telephone connection. Julian is astonished at the wide selection of music on the day’s program.

Question 12

Julian no longer suffers from insomnia, because he falls asleep with the aid of the musical telephone. In the morning, Leete explains to Julian that many countries have converted to

Answer 12

the same industrial system as the United States. Those that have not are slowly being transformed. An international council regulates the trade between nations.

Question 13

A country cannot charge more than it charges its own citizens for a good or service. International debts are averaged and settled every

Answer 13

few years to prevent large trade imbalances from developing. Moreover, citizens are free to emigrate to other countries.

Question 14

Tourists trade their credit for cards of the country they visit. Afterwards, Edith shows Julian the family library, full of classics by

Answer 14

the writers of Julian’s day.

Question 15

Julian joins the Leetes for dinner at a public kitchen. During the walk, a fierce storm overtakes Boston, but the pedestrians are protected by a

Answer 15

large covering over the sidewalks, a public umbrella of sorts.

Question 16

Edith Leete is surprised to discover that, in Julian’s day, certain jobs, such as that of a waiter, were considered “

Answer 16

“menial.” Now that everyone belongs to the same class, there are no such attitudes.

Question 17

The long discussions between Julian and Doctor Leete are a symbolic representation of the dialogue between Bellamy and his audience. Julian, as a product of the nineteenth-century society, represents

Answer 17

Bellamy’s readers. Doctor Leete, as the mouthpiece for Bellamy’s ideas, represents Bellamy himself.

Question 18

Through Julian, Bellamy anticipates the questions and concerns of his audience about his proposals for social reform. He rationally and systematically .

Answer 18

rationally and systematically responds to these questions and concerns through Doctor Leete.

Question 19

Julian’s first major question about twentieth-century society deals with the problem of motivating workers to do their best. Julian believes that workers will not do their best if

Answer 19

they know that they will not only be the same no matter how they perform, but also that everyone else will receive exactly the same amount of credit at the end of the year.

Question 20

In the nineteenth century, wages and the threat of starvation provided the motivation for workers. If they did not work as hard as they could, they were

Answer 20

fired and replaced with someone else.

Question 21

Doctor Leete explains that moral beliefs regarding work have changed. Everyone who does his or her best receives the same amount of credit, because

Answer 21

doing one’s best is considered a citizen’s moral duty to the nation. Every citizen who does his or her best has performed this duty, even though some workers produce more than others.

Question 22

While the nineteenth century prized individualism, the twentieth century prizes

Answer 22

community and cooperation

Question 23

Therefore, every citizen feels that it is his or her duty to

Answer 23

contribute to the common good through his or her labor.

Question 24

Moreover, the twentieth century does not necessarily dispense entirely with individualism. All workers are honored with special recognition for their worthy actions through a standardized ranking system, so the twentieth century has merely adapted individualism. It honors

Answer 24

individual efforts that contribute to the common good, rather than encouraging a system of “every man for himself.”

Question 25

It is a system that rewards selfless individualism rather than the

Answer 25

selfish individualism of the nineteenth century.

Question 26

The nineteenth-century economy, based on private capital, weeded out inefficiency and waste through competition. Inefficient, wasteful businesses lost out to businesses that were

Answer 26

more efficient; inefficient workers lost out to more efficient ones.

Question 27

Competition was the rule of the game: businesses competed with one another for customers, and workers competed with one another for jobs. Those who lost out in the competition starved. However, Bellamy proposes

Answer 27

mutual cooperation as a far more efficient system than competition.

Question 28

Under a system of competition, money and time are quite frequently wasted. Workers who cannot adequately compete for jobs represent

Answer 28

wasted labor. Failed business ventures represent wasted time and money.

Question 29

. In Bellamy’s imagined utopia, all capital is publicly owned and managed by the government. Labor is efficiently directed to

Answer 29

-controlled industries. Therefore, demand is much more closely matched to supply than it was in the nineteenth century.

Question 30

Moreover, this system has not sacrificed personal freedom. Citizens are free to

Answer 30

pursue the careers of their choice, and they are free to spend their yearly credit as they wish.

Question 31

Therefore, publicly owned capital does not infringe upon the consumer choice that nineteenth century society revered so much about their industrial economy. Bellamy presents his idea of a perfect society as one that is

Answer 31

economically and morally sound

Question 32

Devotion to the common good eliminates poverty and suffering as well as the massive

Answer 32

waste that Bellamy perceives in the nineteenth-century competitive economy.

Question 33

Bellamy hints at a much larger level of mutual cooperation when he describes the continuing evolution of international relations. Nations cooperate, rather than compete with one another. Doctor Leete predicts that all of humanity will eventually be united as

Answer 33

one nation

Question 34

Hence, Bellamy represents his ideas for social reform as a means to reduce

Answer 34

wasteful and violent international conflict. However, Bellamy again exhibits some nineteenth-century biases of his own, characterizing South America, Africa, and Asia as inferior to Europe and the United States.