105. With regard to trade, the World Government will also arrange for every article and every product to go the very shortest way from producer to consumer. It will thus abolish the present quite unrealistic zig-zag system of trade in which, in many cases, goods have to go through numberless detours, reloadings, transportation from middleman to middleman, from firm to firm, before they reach the consumer. As these reloadings, or middleman processes, naturally cannot take place without yielding a profit for the middlemen, and cannot take place either without work, nor be free of charge, then the above system will mean that the goods become many times dearer for the consumer, and also that terrestrial mankind's collective work power will be burdened with this completely valueless work. But to allow a product, a necessity of life, to go through a set of processes which do not change its nature at all, but might even sometimes make it outdated - none the less raising its price and making its goal even more inaccessible - is at variance with nature, with common sense and with intelligence, and thus turns out to be an abnormality. The present middleman system - which in not a single case means a change for the better in the quality of the article of commerce, but on the contrary, in many cases even causes its deterioration, while at the same time raising its price considerably - is thus an abnormality in the business world. And, just as a postal package or letter from Denmark for instance - by means of a well-developed world organization within the postal administration - need not go through a number of competing and profiteering private postal firms in Spain, Norway, England, Africa, India and so on to reach its destination - New York - by which the rate for the same postal matter would eventually run into as many kroner as it is now øre* - so a necessity of life has no need either to pass through a number of private, profiteering-minded middleman firms in order to come from the supplier to the consumer, so raising the price many times.
      The abolition of this whole middleman system will then mean reduction of prices for the terrestrial community. Some might object that the abolition of the middleman system would put many people out of work, but to this one could say that, just as little as the World State could have any interest in furthering a "career" which consisted of drawing water from a well only to pour it back again into the well, just as little could it have any interest in furthering the middleman system while it exists as a form of career which is not only analogous to the one mentioned but is also a deficit for, and an exceptional undermining of, terrestrial mankind's entire economic status, caused by the rise in the cost of products and the increase of work. As the people belonging to the middleman system thus, in reality, live on values for which they have not rendered anything positive in return, since their work is quite superfluous, then their income source becomes related to "an artificial career". The term artificial career is used to mean all those sources of income by which an individual can sustain life without doing any kind of work in exchange. Among these artificial careers may also be included public assistance, unemployment benefit, gambling gains and inherited valuables. They are all without exception factors which, more or less, exempt the people in question from giving work to the rest of the community in return for their existence, and correspondingly become therefore "careers" which are maintained by other people"s work. It is obvious that such abnormalities will be impossible when the total economy of terrestrial people is under administrative control. The coming World Government will at that time also know how to issue careers which are not only mentally and physically positive for the concerned individuals themselves, but are also positive for the whole economy of the World State and consequently become a mitigating factor in the working and living conditions of all mankind. From today's viewpoint all necessities of life will be unbelievably inexpensive in the World State as they are connected only with working wages - no profit and no multiple artificial careers for other people. Then every able-bodied individual must contribute to the World Kingdom a real plus - not a minus - for his living.
      The world authority will thus block any source of income which is not a natural and well-deserved working wage, but on the contrary appears in the form of the previously mentioned "profit". Thus, in the World State no able-bodied terrestrial person can live gratis, but must contribute to daily life by doing work that is definitely beneficial to the whole of mankind as well as to himself.
 
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* Translator's note: 100 øre = 1 kroner.