"but now, as it seems, you have
reversed all this?"

"Pretty much so," said he. "The wares which we make are made because
they are needed: men make for their neighbours' use as if they were
making for themselves, not for a vague market of which they know nothing,
and over which they have no control: as there is no buying and selling,
it would be mere insanity to make goods on the chance of their being
wanted; for there is no longer anyone who can be compelled to buy them.
So that whatever is made is good, and thoroughly fit for its purpose.
Nothing can be made except for genuine use; therefore no inferior goods
are made. Moreover, as aforesaid, we have now found out what we want, so
we make no more than we want; and as we are not driven to make a vast
quantity of useless things we have time and resources enough to consider
our pleasure in making them. All work which would be irksome to do by
hand is done by immensely improved machinery; and in all work which it is
a pleasure to do by hand machinery is done without. There is no
difficulty in finding work which suits the special turn of mind of
everybody; so that no man is sacrificed to the wants of another. From
time to time, when we have found out that some piece of work was too
disagreeable or troublesome, we have given it up and done altogether
without the thing produced by it. Now, surely you can see that under
these circumstances all the work that we do is an exercise of the mind
and body more or less pleasant to be done: so that instead of avoiding
work everybody seeks it: and, since people have got defter in doing the
work generation after generation, it has become so easy to do, that it
seems as if there were less done, though probably more is produced. I
suppose this explains that fear, which I hinted at just now, of a
possible scarcity in work, which perhaps you have already noticed, and
which is a feeling on the increase, and has been for a score of years."

"But do you think," said I, "that there is any fear of a work-famine
amongst you?"

"No, I do not," said he, "and I will tell why; it is each man's business
to make his own work pleasanter and pleasanter, which of course tends
towards raising the standard of excellence, as no man enjoys turning out
work which is not a credit to him, and also to greater deliberation in
turning it out; and there is such a vast number of things which can be
treated as works of art, that this alone gives employment t