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CHINA’S MARKET COMMUNISM

China’s Market Communism guides readers step by step up the ladder of China’s
reforms and transformational possibilities to a full understanding of Beijing’s com-
munist and post-communist options by investigating the lessons that Xi can learn
from Mao, Adam Smith and inclusive economic theory. The book sharply distin-
guishes what can be immediately accomplished from the road that must be tra-
versed to better futures.

Steven Rosefielde is Professor of Economics at the University of North Carolina,

Chapel Hill and a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences. One of the
world's leading experts in Soviet/Russian Studies, Comparative Economic Systems
and International Security, he is the author of numerous books including Asian
Economic Systems (2013).

Jonathan Leightner teaches at Augusta University in the United States and

Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. Johns Hopkins University hired him to
teach at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center in China for 2008–2010. His publications
include articles on China’s trade, exchange rates, foreign reserves, fiscal policy and
land rights.
CHINA’S MARKET
COMMUNISM
Challenges, Dilemmas, Solutions

Steven Rosefielde and Jonathan Leightner

First published 2018
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2018 Steven Rosefielde and Jonathan Leightner
The right of Steven Rosefielde and Jonathan Leightner to be identified as
authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN: 978-1-138-12519-3 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-12523-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-73278-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo
by diacriTech, Chennai
In memory of my beloved son, David Rosefielde
CONTENTS

List of figures ix
List of tables x
Prefacexi
Acknowledgementsxiii

Introduction 1

PART I
Red Communism 3

1 Politics in command 5

2 Mao Zedong 9

PART II
White Communism 17

3 Deng Xiaoping 19

4 Xi Jinping 28
viii Contents

PART III
The great debate 33

5 Red versus White 35

6 Liberal versus Illiberal 37

PART IV
Beyond Communism 51

7 Liberal Democracy 53

8 Globalism 56

9 Confucius 58

10 Choosing sides 66

Prospects 68
Notes 69
Bibliography  109
Index115
FIGURES

2.1 Command economy: industrial control mechanism 10

6.1 Factor allocation 38
6.2 Production 40
6.3 Retail 41
6.4 Utility 43
6.5 Well-being 44
6.6 Price adjustment 46
6.7 Quantity adjustment 47
6.8 Profit maximizing 48
TABLES

2.1  Communist superindustrialization surges (Maddison’s GDP

series, thousand 1990 international Geary-Khamis dollars) 15
9.1 Graying of Taiwan’s population (percent of
population over 65) 63
9.2 Fertility rate in Taiwan, 1960–2003 (percent) 63
9.3 Taiwanese family structure (percent) 64
9.4 Divorce rates in Taiwan (percent) 64
9.5 Female labor market participation rates (percent) 64
PREFACE

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, the pivotal
event that paved the way for the establishment of communism in China. It provides
a fitting occasion for assessing an aspect of the Soviet communist legacy: China’s
communist experience and prospects. This volume probes China’s communist
dream, chronicles its evolution, investigates the properties of Xi Jinping’s contempo-
rary market communism, and evaluates future possibilities from a rigorous inclusive
economic perspective.The Chinese communist experience has been largely a story
of two rival visions of the true path to Golden Communism – Mao Zedong’s rev-
olutionary Red Communist (Command Communism) approach and Xi Jinping’s
technocratic White Communist (Market Communism) option. This dichotomy is
the heart of our investigation, but it is incomplete because it conceals the larger
perspective. China’s market communist leaders do not have to choose between Red
and White. There is a wide variety of Pink Communist and Liberal Democratic
alternatives. The most attractive are surveyed to gauge China’s best path forward.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This volume extends Abram Bergson’s pioneering contributions to ­neoclassical

welfare and socialist economic theory to the analysis of Chinese communism.
Bergson was Professor Rosefielde’s thesis advisor and mentor. Alex Nove, Sir Lionel
Robins and Leonard Shapiro also were seminal influences. Quinn Mills, Chenyi
Yu, Wenting Ma, Yiyi Liu, Zhikai Wang, Christine Tsai, Ehtisham Ahmad, Hasanat
Syed, Yue Lai, Yuhan Wang, Diana Song and Siyu Zhao provided useful insights.
Yunjuan Liu compiled the bibliography. Edwin Song prepared the graphs of
Chapter 6. Susan Rosefielde, Yong Ling Lam and Samantha Phua gave essential
encouragement. Professor Leightner acknowledges the help of Rebecca Smith and
Sandra Leightner in finding news articles on China and the assistance of Xi Jin in
finding information written in Chinese on Chinese laws. We express our sincere
­appreciation to all for their generous assistance.
INTRODUCTION

Xi Jinping (General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, the President

of the People’s Republic of China, and the Chairman of the Central Military
Commission) faces a complex dilemma. He can try to improve China’s techno-
cratic market communism (“White Communism”),1 or push forward (backward)
to something better. He has chosen to advance by shifting the focus of China’s
development strategy from export- to import-substitution-led economic growth.
He may succeed in achieving this limited objective, but the approach is too narrow.
China’s well-being does not depend on material progress alone. The right path
ahead should enhance inclusive life quality (well-being).
Followers of Mao Zedong grasp this and urge a return to revolutionary “Red
Communism.” They consider the issue of export- versus import-substitution-led
development extraneous. Mao’s disciples want a more radical solution: a return to a
pro-egalitarian command economy.
Xi and Mao both assume that communist ideals are internally consistent (univer-
sal harmonious actualization of every individual’s full human potential in a ­freehold
property-less world with non-coercive government), and are “scientifically” achiev-
able. They both reject democracy and place their trust in the Communist Party
of China (CPC), which claims to represent the people’s will, but may not do so.
China’s revolutionary Red Communism in Mao’s eyes and technocratic White
Communism in Xi’s view are not utopian, and pose no dystopian risk. This is why
the CPC clings to the Communist Dream, steadfastly refusing to share political
power or contemplate non-communist alternatives.
The internal debate which takes the CPC’s and communism’s superiority on
faith revolves around a long-standing dispute over the comparative merit of polit-
ical and economic regimes ruled by CPC “experts” (Deng Xiaoping school) or
“reds” (Mao Zedong school). It avoids discussing blended options and excludes
2 Introduction

the possibility of democratic free enterprise or a host of other non-communist

alternatives including Europe’s social democracy, Confucian market systems, Japan’s
communalism, Piketty-type social justice regimes,2 Trump’s populism,3 or even Tao
Yuanming’s utopian Peach Blossom Spring.
This treatise probes China’s communist possibilities from the perspective of the
“Great Debate” over ideal social systems,4 with special attention paid to microeco-
nomic production, distribution and transfer efficiency. Details about Mao’s and Xi’s
policies are provided in endnotes.
Our investigation of China’s communist possibilities begins with a complete
description and analysis of China’s contested communist systemic options, and
then considers the merits of three non-communist alternatives: Liberal Democracy,
globalism, and Asia’s Confucian ideal. This is a “rational choice” approach.5 The
exercise suggests that even though the Chinese people may fare well enough under
Red and White Communism, wise rulers in Beijing should not dismiss other can-
didates. Prudence demands an open-minded assessment of how mainlanders should
lay their bets. This judgment holds regardless of the merit of specific policies and
development strategies like Xi Jinping’s “One Belt, One Road” scheme.
Although we believe that compassionate Liberal Democracy is China’s best
option, we refrain from advocating a best solution or prophesizing, leaving it to
readers themselves to judge the Middle Kingdom’s best path forward. As is widely
understood, leaders do not always choose wisely.6 It is unlikely that the Communist
Party of China will carefully weigh all its systems options in deciding China’s best
rational choice.7 Outcomes may well be path-dependent.8 The virtue of the ratio-
nal choice approach is that it clarifies possibilities, but this does not assure that
reason will prevail.
PART I

Red Communism
1
POLITICS IN COMMAND

The Communist Party of China (CPC), founded July 1, 1921 by Chen Duxiu
and Li Dazhao, seized control over the Middle Kingdom under the leadership of
Chairman Mao Zedong on October 1, 1949.9 Chen, Li and Mao were Marxists
of diverse persuasions. Their notions of communist utopia and tactics differed,
but all agreed on fundamentals. The task of the Chinese Communist Party was
to eradicate capitalist political and economic rule, install a worker-peasant state,
criminalize ­private property, the market and entrepreneurship, and establish an
exploitation-free, harmonious, egalitarian order. The dictatorship of the proletariat
(and peasants) was seen as a sine qua non to thwart counter-revolution and foster
rapid industrialization during a “socialist” transition period, but all agreed that in
the fullness of time the Communist Party would turn over the reins of government
to self-regulating co-operators.
Chen’s, Li’s and Mao’s notions of communism’s future were visionary. They
­neither understood nor concerned themselves about technical economic feasibility.
However, this was of little moment. All believed that communist rule meant revo-
lutionary “politics in command” during the transition period.10 The CPC’s task was
and is to fortify communist power and advance the communist cause as its leaders
perceive it and necessity dictates without fretting about economic efficiency.11
Chinese leaders have interpreted this mandate in two broad ways.They embraced
the Stalinist notion of command economy under Mao Zedong from 1950–1976
(with an anarcho-communist interlude during the Cultural Revolution),12 and
managed markets thereafter. Today both schools assume that the Communist Party
will someday fully realize Karl Marx’s communist vision elaborated in his Economic
and Philosophical manuscripts of 1844 and The Communist Manifesto,13 and should this
prove impossible, they intend to satisfice by striking the right balance.
6 Red Communism

The difference between the Maoist “red” and Xi Jinping’s authoritarian

“expert” model is simple. Mao’s Red Communism proscribes private property,
business and entrepreneurship, supplying society instead through requisitioning
and rationing (under the Party’s guidance or direct worker/peasant action), and
enlists revolutionary spirit to combat bureaucratic abuses and promote commu-
nist egalitarianism.
Xi Jinping’s technocratic regulated White Communist market system retains
aspects of the command principle including state freehold ownership and planning,
but supplements it with leasehold property and regulated private enterprise. Xi’s
market communism puts “experts” in charge and rejects “red” anarcho-communist
zealotry. The dichotomy, in a nutshell, is “revolutionary” planning versus regulated
market communism.
In Mao’s world managers, workers and peasants are assigned tasks by the
Communist Party or by the communist invisible hand in anarcho-communist
moments. Comrades work for state fixed wages, or spontaneously cooperate. The
Party commandeers, rations, distributes and sells goods to the people at state set
prices. Anyone who does not work is a parasite, an offense punishable by forced
labor in laogai (concentration camp).14 Profits and rents belong to the state (people)
and together with taxes fund public programs. The people are supplied with basic
housing, transportation, energy, medical and educational services. The distribution
of income is egalitarian because there are no private asset holders and managers
receive neither profits nor rents. Mutual support further enhances social justice.
Money and credit are not available for speculative purposes, eliminating financial
crises. Resources are mobilized to spur technological progress and rapid economic
development. Mao’s command economy operated at full throttle, oscillating only
with the winds of enthusiasm and labor effort. State wage and price-fixing kept
inflation in check.15
Mao’s command model was a macroeconomic dream come true. It provided
overfull employment, price stability, business cycle-free production and rapid eco-
nomic growth. Its primary drawbacks were labor coercion, consumer goods short-
ages (rationing) and shoddy merchandise. Workers and peasants were compelled
to obey the Party and accept their lot. They could not acquire the goods they
desired because it was illegal for consumers to negotiate with state suppliers. The
system was a Spartan economy of shortage where everyone only received the basics
because the lion’s share of public expenditures was devoted to investment, defense
and public goods.The supply of consumer goods gradually increased over time, but
this meant little to people compelled to make do with things they did not want.
Citizens had limited opportunity to save and accumulate. They did not have to
insure their property because they had none.They did not have to fret about foreign
travel, transferring assets abroad, democratic action, civil rights or religion because
everything not explicitly authorized by the Communist Party was forbidden.
This was a devil’s bargain. Mao’s communism provided macroeconomic
robustness in exchange for compulsory labor, forced substitution and civil disem-
powerment. It gratified those who preferred a bare-boned egalitarian existence
 Politics in command 7

(pauper communism), and was an anathema to hedonists.The system was ­predicable

because it could not be reformed from below. The Party repressed private initiative
and civic action. If the Communist Party leaders were content with their devil’s
bargain, the people had to grin and bear it, barring a counter-revolution.
The counter-revolution happened. It came from within the Communist Party,
gathering momentum after Mao Zedong died September 9, 1976. It was organized
to overthrow aspects of the command paradigm and anarcho-communist zealotry
in favor of economic power sharing between the Party and a new breed of leasehold
entrepreneurs. Deng Xiaoping led the charge. He permitted Party and ­non-Party
members to lease state assets and produce for domestic and foreign markets on a
for-profit basis. International investors were encouraged to establish production
facilities in special economic zones on the mainland. Deng allowed ­private, jointly
owned and state companies to issue bonds and equity shares (for leasehold busi-
nesses) on domestic and foreign stock exchanges. The Renminbi (RMB) gradually
became convertible. The Party provided financial support for speculative activities,
and allowed prices and wages to be competitively negotiated.
This devolution of economic authority from the Communist Party to f­or-profit
producers eliminated Mao’s economy of shortage. Deng’s new deal sacrificed mac-
roeconomic robustness to preserve the Party’s political monopoly, and achieve
higher consumer satisfaction, substantial economic freedom, some civic liberal-
ization and inequality. Xi Jinping’s market communism today no longer sneers at
economic efficiency and has zero tolerance for Red Guard militancy. It permits
economic rewards to reflect marginal value added and has curbed forced substi-
tution. The cost of this liberalization has been involuntary unemployment, inegal-
itarianism, social injustice, inflation, financial speculation, excessive debt and the
increasing danger of financial crises.16
The leadership seems broadly satisfied with the new arrangements. This has led
many to infer that China has abandoned communism for capitalism, but the judg-
ment is superficial. The Communist Party remains at the helm. It directly controls
the economy’s commanding heights (the largest companies, including the ­military–
industrial complex) and the supply of public goods. It is the freehold owner of
the nation’s land and entire productive capital stock, including property nominally
classified as private. It has immense powers of taxation. It issues executive orders,
mandates, rules and regulations at will, and rejects laissez-faire. The Communist
Party acts as the economy’s master puppeteer using all the instruments at its d­ isposal
including internal Party command to compel the economy to do its bidding, and
can legally rescind leases and re-appropriate the nation’s assets at its discretion.
Consumers are only partially sovereign at the Party’s sufferance, and the leadership
appears to have no intention of sharing political power with rivals or building a
democratic regime with full civil liberties under the rule of law.
Market communism despite these reservations is better for citizens who
abhorred the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, but is a dubious bargain for
egalitarians, Red Guardians and those who prize social solidarity. Xi Jinping
and the Communist Party majority are under pressure to strike a better balance.
8 Red Communism

GDP growth has been decelerating and the threat of a major financial crisis is
mounting. Mao’s supporters are calling for accommodation, while others are press-
ing the case for democracy.17
What should be done? Should the Chinese Communist Party change course by
paring or further empowering the market? Should it enhance anarcho-communism?
Should it abandon or strengthen its dictatorship of the workers and peasants? People
hold strong and opposing opinions on these matters based on their ­ethical, ideo-
logical, political, social, cultural and religious attitudes that allow them to disregard
fundamentals.This puts the cart before the horse, caricaturing the Red Communist–
White Communist split as a struggle between have nots and haves. The deeper issue
is whether Marx’s communism is attainable either as an ideal or acceptable approx-
imation, and if so, whether communism is positively, normatively and ethically best.
Nobel Prizes have been awarded for mathematically proving the “existence” of
a competitive market general equilibrium (Pareto optimality) covering production,
distribution and transfers.18 The proof shows how suppliers can optimally satisfy
consumer’s demands. A similar proof has been devised for the perfectly planned
analogue of perfect competition given planners’ preferences.19 The correspondence
is called the duality theorem, and provides substance to Chinese claims that plan-
ning theoretically is as good as competition. Moreover, mixed models combining
markets and plans are easily constructed. This provides comfort for supporters of
both Mao’s command planning and Xi’s market communism, but only suppos-
ing that planners know exactly what each and every individual wants (including
transfers). This is the rub. Advocates of command planning, Cultural Revolution
and market communism cannot construct a complete existence theorem that
shows how the Communist Party and Red Guards know what individuals want
(including transfers).20 No Marxist has done so, and until such existence proofs are
devised any debate between Maoists and Xi’s supporters is shadow boxing. Neither
approach can provide fully efficient production, distribution and transfers or fulfill
arcane promises about full abundance (all goods are free), the abolition of exploita-
tion of man by man, harmony and the full actualization of each individual’s human
potential. These goals are social romanticism.21 There is no path to the promised
land, even if Communist Party members were competent, well-intended and wise.
Marx’s and Stalin’s meta-historical materialist dialectics don’t save the day.22
This means that the comparative merit of Maoism and Xi-ism depends on
the performance characteristics (positive economics) of Red Communism and
White Communism in a bounded rational universe,23 social justice and other nor-
mative considerations (ethics). Communist ideals, except insofar as they bear on
social justice and ethics, are irrelevant and should not cloud normative judgments.
What counts are the comparative levels of well-being that Mao’s and Xi’s systems
provide, judged by wise and compassionate observers.
2
MAO ZEDONG

Mao Zedong’s Red Army defeated the Kuomintang, conquered the mainland and
established a one-party regime. Mao, the “Great Helmsman,” was a military vet-
eran and hardened partisan.24 He became Chairman of the Communist Party in
1935, and was conversant with communist ideological politics. Stalin was his polit-
ical mentor.25 This background shaped Mao’s perception of the main direction for
­constructing communist power in China. It impelled him to ruthlessly suppress the
forces of counter-revolution26 and follow the path pioneered by Stalin for building
command communism, with some accommodation for local circumstances and
many casualties.27 Despite successes,28 Mao understood that full Marxist utopian
communism could not be gestated overnight. Tactical concessions were essential,
but he believed that if the Party stayed the course, China would eventually reach
the promised land.
The Great Helmsman’s preference for Stalin’s command model also was the
path of least resistance. Soviet and Chinese communists shared the same ideo-
logical goals. The USSR despite great adversities rapidly industrialized after 1928,
decisively defeated Hitler’s armies and developed atomic and thermonuclear weap-
ons. Perhaps other communist models including anarcho-communism (Cultural
Revolutionary “redness”) might have been better,29 but there was little reason in
1950 to resist Stalin’s bandwagon.30

Command economy
Mao from the outset chose to adopt Stalin’s command economic framework with its
complex “top-down” planning and “bottom-up” self-regulating mechanisms. The
framework rested on three principles: the criminalization of private property (state
freehold ownership of the means of production), the criminalization of markets
10 Red Communism

(state requisitioning and rationing), and the criminalization of ­entrepreneurship

(strict subordination of enterprise managers to Communist Party control).
Karl Marx contended that private ownership of productive assets allowed cap-
italists to misappropriate worker “surplus value,” a problem that Stalin and Mao
believed could be eradicated by nationalizing the means of production. Similarly,
Marx recognized that market power (oligopoly and monopoly) enabled ruthless
individuals to exploit the masses. The antidote here was to substitute state actors
for private businesspersons. State-owned enterprises and distributive organizations
(wholesale and retail) would be ordered to adhere strictly to government plans
(requisitioning and rationing). Production would reflect social need, and distribu-
tion would be guided by the principles of communist justice.
Stalin and Mao also understood that state-appointed factory directors might
violate communist duty by disregarding commands and acting entrepreneurially
on their own behalf. China’s Communist Party precluded the danger by requiring
appointees to obey, imposing severe penalties for disobedience.
The criminalization of private property, markets and entrepreneurship stewarded
by a wise Communist Party from Mao’s perspective on the morrow of the revo-
lution appeared to require a top-down system of state economic control. A self-­
regulating anarcho-communist system as Marx original envisioned was still thought
to be best in the long run, after the state withered away, but was considered imprac-
tical in the first phase of socialist construction. The watchwords for top-down state
economic control were plan and compliance. The Communist Party planned and
supervised. Subordinates obeyed. Figure 2.1 illustrates the Soviet command con-
cept for industrial production.

NKVD State Economic Directorate

Supra-Ministerial organizations
Council of Economic Minister
Tax and Budget Authorities

State Bank Regulation

GOSPLAN
Ministry A Ministry B
State Price Regulation

State Incentives
State Inspectorate Dept 1 Dept 2 Design Bureau Dept 3 Dept 4 State Statistical Agency

State Self-Misregulating
Standards Khozraschyot
Firm 1 Firm 2
State Firm 3 Firm 4
Investment
Bank Contract

State Labor Variable Capital Academy of Sciences

Technology Institute
Wholesale

GULAG Retail

FIGURE 2.1 Command economy: industrial control mechanism.

 Mao Zedong 11

The organization diagram is divided into three columns. Responsibility for

planning is vested in scientific institutions, the State Statistical Agency (Goskomstat)
and the State Planning Agency (Gosplan) displayed on the far right. Production,
wholesaling and retailing are represented in the center column by firms and dis-
tributive channels, hierarchically supervised by the State Economic Directorate, the
Council of Economic Ministers, industrial ministries and their subdivisions (main
departments or glavks).
Command planning in this scheme is simplicity itself. Gosplan formulates aggre-
gate plan assignments, approved by the General Secretary of the Communist Party,
which are distributed down the supervisory command chain in the central column
from the State Economic Directorate to ministries, departments and ultimately
enterprise “Red directors” (obedient communist managers) who execute micro-
plan assignments.There are no negotiations and no markets. Planners “scientifically”
plan, and Red directors fulfill their assignments assuring consumer satisfaction. The
system is top down with no self-regulating aspects.
This is the ideal. However, it was unattainable because central authorities
had incomplete information and inadequate computational abilities. They had
no knowledge of enterprise production functions, worker utility functions and
consumer preferences, and lacked technical skills to achieve computopia.31 This
compelled the systems directors to use shortcuts that enabled them to plan broad
aggregates (composite goods),32 but delegated particulars to a host of regulators
including Red directors.
Top-down planning occurred. Red directors were legally obliged to comply, but
frequently could not do so because assignments were infeasible. Ministers, depart-
ments, party officials, military authorities and judicial institutions therefore were
required to intervene and consult with red directors to salvage the situation. The
process can be viewed as muddling through. It enabled the systems directors to
control the broad contours of resource allocation and production through forced
substitution, but not the fine print. Resources were not, and could not be put to
best economic use.33 Results were barely adequate from the consumer’s perspective.
Stalin recognized as early as 1927 that top-down planning’s limitations could
be softened by supplementing plan assignments with a bottom-up self-regulating
mechanism. Red directors were instructed to formulate their own incentive guided
enterprise production plans [tekhpromfinplan (technical industrial financial plans)]
that encouraged them to satisfice under constraint whenever plan assignments were
infeasible or ill advised.34 Engineering methods (eventually including linear and
convex programming) were employed to calculate multi-input, multiproduct plans
that maximized Red director bonuses.35 Managerial rewards were variously tied
to the physical volume of output, revenues and profit. Each incentive scheme had
some merit, and in the case of profit encouraged Red directors to simulate the
optimization protocol of competitive capitalist firms.
Chinese bottom-up bonus incentivized enterprise production made Mao’s
command economy self-regulating, even if plans were disobeyed, buttressed by a
policy of guaranteed state purchase. Enterprise bank accounts were automatically
12 Red Communism

credited when goods were collected at the factory door by the state’s wholesale
network. Red directors never needed to hedge production against the danger of
weak consumer demand. They faced an infinitely elastic demand curve and pro-
duced near the simulated profit maximizing point (Figure 6.8).36 In practice, this
meant that Red directors automatically overproduced and overemployed work-
ers because the State Price Committee deliberately added a large profit margin
to state fixed prices above what would have been competitive equilibrium. This
made Mao’s command economy macro-economically effective and robust on a
bottom-up basis. The mechanism, illustrated in Figure 2.1 by the box enclosing
enterprises, factors of production, wholesaling, retailing, bank credit/debiting and
contracts, was called “self-financing” (khozraschyot). The term conveys the notion
that enterprises functioned independently, outside state budgetary control, but also
has the broader implication of a non-competitive, non-negotiated, self-regulating
bonus-seeking mechanism supported by assured state purchase.
Mao’s command economy could have operated solely on a bottom-up basis.
Red directors could have acted according to rule rather than assignment, mis-
guided by “false” state fixed Marxist labor value-added fiat prices and arbitrary
bonus incentives. The Communist Party, however, took a hands-on approach.
It compelled Red directors to adjust their production programs to accommo-
date wishes expressed in top-down assignments and the demands of ministers,
departments, party officials, military authorities, the secret police and judicial
institutions.
Mao’s command economy thus was a dual control top-down and bottom-up
mechanism managed with political intervention. It was neither optimal, nor good.
It was a weak satisficing regime that worked well enough from Mao’s perspec-
tive by guaranteeing overproduction, overfull employment and economic growth
driven by peasant migration to industry, new capital formation and technological
progress.
The same basic principles held in agriculture. Mao sought to eradicate peasant
exploitation by criminalizing large-scale private land ownership and agrarian markets.
Estates were collectivized and then communalized, and peasants were com-
manded by top-down plans. Collective and communal plans, like state industrial
plans, were infeasible or undesirable for a multitude of reasons, and had to be sup-
plemented by bottom-up peasant initiative. Conflicts between top-down plans and
bottom-up initiatives were resolved ad hoc through political intervention.
Communist Party command over agriculture occurred in stages. First, land
ownership was transferred from landlords to landless peasants under the Agrarian
Reform Law of 1950 (“speak bitterness campaign”), and peasants were encouraged
to cooperate in mutual aid teams. Second, starting in 1953, Mao adopted a radical
collectivization program based on the Soviet model with intrusive Party agricul-
tural control from above.37 China’s farmland was amalgamated into 25,000 mega
communes, each with about 5,000 families, organized into “brigades” of about
200 families. The government made all decisions – farming methods, sale of crops,
prices. Third, Mao forced peasants to combine industry with farming during the
 Mao Zedong 13

“Great Leap Forward” in 1959–61, while at the same time President Liu Shaoqi
allowed the peasants to own their own private plots, permitted bonuses and reduced
the size of communes.38
The Great Helmsman’s preference for a dual control top-down and bottom-up
command industrial and agrarian economy was widely shared by Communist Party
veterans, workers and peasants inspired by revolutionary idealism, proud that China
had ended a “century of humiliation.”39 Affluence and consumer sovereignty were
subsidiary, and shortages and forced substitution did not perturb China’s leaders.
Party activists, workers and peasants in the Mao era were revolutionary roman-
tics. They desired an altruistic communitarian society founded on the principles
of liberation, equality and public service captained by China’s Communist Party.
The Great Helmsman’s command economy was adequate for their purposes as
long as “experts” did not substitute an anti-“red” agenda. This danger was omni-
present.40 Technocratic party officials held immense power both in the top-down
and ­bottom-up spheres. They gradually came to feel that they deserved privileges
and salaries commensurate with their superior social contribution.41 Their attitude
irked Red revolutionary idealists.
Mao appeared double-minded on the issue. He wanted to have his cake and eat
it. The Great Helmsman desired better economic performance, but also favored an
egalitarian order that permitted the concentration of political power in his own
hands. He gradually came to the conclusion that anarcho-communist methods
were needed to purge the command system, that top-down, bottom-up command
should be abandoned.
Mao launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966 to reinvigorate China’s r­edness.42
It substituted “Red Guard” zealotry for Party technical supervision. Many viewed
it as Chinese communism’s defining moment. The Cultural Revolution was inter-
preted at home and abroad as anti-command, self-guiding communism from below
liberated from technocratic state administration,43 and has become an essential
aspect of what contemporaries mean by Maoism. For most Maoists today, com-
mand is not enough.The alternative to Xi Jinping’s market communism for them is
not a technocratic expert-managed command economy. Rationing and requisition
in their view must be consonant with and inspired by revolutionary, self-regulating
economic action from below.44 This is an opaque guideline,45 but good enough to
justify militant action – the Great Cultural Revolution.46
Mao’s Red Guards and three-in-one committees did not abolish top-down or
bottom-up planning.47 They only weakened the influence of top-down planning
and replaced fixed-price enterprise bonus maximizing with revolutionary zeal. Red
Guards determined the right revolutionary thing to do as they perceived it, paying
no heed to profit maximizing (and hence opportunity costs). They ignored effi-
ciency, and refused to choose technology rationally.
Bottom-up planning continued, but was transformed. The system became Red
Guard sovereign. Workers and peasants were employed, goods produced and dis-
tributed. Technologies were adopted and new investments made on the basis of
revolutionary dogma, and weak top-down and regulatory guidance. This meant
14 Red Communism

that outcomes could not be Party sovereign, or utopian ideal. They were satisficing
results, given Red Guard preferences.
The Cultural Revolution did not reject Mao’s macroeconomic goals. Red
Guards sought to achieve full capacity utilization, full employment, stability and
growth, but they substituted new revolutionary methods. Labor participatory man-
agement, replaced expert management stressing its egalitarian agenda.
Some comrades were enthralled by Red Guard anarcho-communism; others
despised it. Clearly, the approach was ham-handed and could have been improved.48
For example, Mao could have commanded the Red Guards and three-in-one com-
mittees to compute optimal enterprise micro-plans with expert assistance,49 and
could have taken externalities into consideration when assessing the public good.50
These refinements would have integrate rational choice theory with redness with-
out compromising revolutionary anarcho-communist sovereignty, and provided
hope for those who continue to believe that Red Communism is best.51

Storming paradise
Mao’s command model was designed to storm paradise. It was a revolutionary
romantic frontal assault, insensitive to collateral damage. The strategy called for
mobilizing labor, capital and natural resources to accelerate economic growth and
development on an egalitarian basis for the community’s benefit uncontaminated
by privilege and rank. Utopian Marxist communism also promised full abundance,
consumer satiation, complete actualization of human potential, harmony and the
eradication of exploitation of man by man, but this could not be accomplished in
the first stage of socialist construction. Maoists were reconciled to accepting half-
a-loaf on the express train to socialism’s second stage where individual demand
would determine egalitarian supply and comrades would freely substitute leisure
for labor.
China’s top-down, bottom-up command planning regime was a modest success
judged from the criteria Maoists set for themselves in the turnpike stage of socialist
development (see Table 2.1), where everyone was expected to accept brute-forced
substitution, labor mobilization and 35 million excess deaths as the price for tomor-
row’s utopia.52
The Cultural Revolution revealed that Reds and experts profoundly disagreed
about the social merit of Mao’s accomplishment and the benefits of staying the
course, even though neither seemed perturbed by the carnage. Reds wanted more
than an iron rice bowl53 while awaiting the promised land, and experts wanted
better lives for themselves. Others grudgingly were prepared to soldier on, despite
growing impatience after wandering more than a quarter century in the desert of
command planning. They wanted better social relations and higher levels of indi-
vidual consumer satisfaction. The second stage of communist construction could
not be achieved with the top-down, bottom-up command paradigm. Something
would have to give. Reds would have to show that expert-free, self-regulating
worker-managed communism was best, or experts would have to find a way of
Exploring the Variety of Random
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Title: Survival factor

Author: Charles V. De Vet

Illustrator: Paul Orban

Release date: September 7, 2023 [eBook #71592]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: Royal Publications, Inc, 1957

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SURVIVAL

FACTOR ***
 SURVIVAL FACTOR

By CHARLES V. DE VET

Illustrated by ORBAN

They were trapped on a viciously

primitive planet, by an electronic
bloodhound that was viciously unpredictable!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Infinity September 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The survey team was seven parsecs beyond the Rim when the
bloodhound picked up their trail.
Three years earlier the inevitable had happened. The humans of the
Ten Thousand Worlds had met another race with the faster-than-light
space drive—and an expanding population. The contacts had been
brief—and violent. Each race had set up defenses against the other,
and maneuvered for position and control of the habitable worlds
separating them. The aliens' bloodhounds formed the outer circle of
their defense perimeter.
The s-tracer continued its bleak chirping as Wallace read the figures
on its dial and made a swift calculation. "We have time for one dip
into spacebridge," he informed Saxton, the other member of the
team. "If we don't find a planet fast when we come out, we've had it."
Saxton nodded. "We'd better backtrack. Set the bridge for that star
group we recorded yesterday. Hurry. We haven't any time to spare."
Four minutes later Wallace brought the two handles of the bridge
control together—and the ship winked into hyperspace. Wallace's
body jerked upright, and he sat stiff and straight, fighting the impulse
to retch that rode his stomach muscles. The room around him took on
the visual consistency of thin milk. The low hum of the ship's
instruments increased in intensity through the hands that he pressed
tightly to his head. Mingled with the sound of the small motors was
Saxton's high-strained muttering: "I can't take any more of it! I can't
take any more of it!"
Then all was normal again. They were out of hyperspace.
Wallace reached for a knob on the board in front of him and began
turning it slowly. Both men watched the vision panel on the front wall.
After a minute a blue globe floated in from one side. "We'll have to try
that one," Wallace said. "It at least has atmosphere."
"We don't have any choice," Saxton answered. With his head he
indicated the s-tracer. Its stark chirping had begun again.
"The hound's closer than I thought," Wallace complained. "We'll have
to risk a faster passage to the surface than would ordinarily be safe."
Drops of perspiration that had gathered on his forehead joined
together and ran down the side of his nose. He shook his head to
clear them away.
By the time they entered the blue planet's atmosphere the intervals
between the chirps of the s-tracer had shortened until now they were
almost continuous. Gradually, as they plunged toward the planet's
surface, the room's temperature rose. They stripped to their shorts
and kept the pace steady. When it seemed that they could stand the
heat no longer the ship paused, and settled slowly to the ground.
Quickly Wallace shut off the drive motors. The only sound within the
ship was the purring of the cooling apparatus.
"Any chance that it can detect our cooling motor?" Saxton asked.
"I don't believe it can follow anything smaller than our main drive,"
Wallace answered. He pointed to the s-tracer. "It's already lost us. Of
course we know it won't go away. It'll circle the planet until we come
out and try again."
During the next hour, as the temperature within the ship returned
slowly to normal, Wallace and Saxton kept busy checking the gauges
that measured and recorded the elements in the planet's atmosphere.
At last Saxton sighed heavily. "Livable," he said.
"Closer to Earth norm than we could have hoped," Wallace agreed.
"What do we do now?"
"We could stay here for two years—until the bloodhound runs out of
fuel. That's the estimated time it's supplied for."
"That doesn't sound like a very encouraging prospect." Saxton's dark
tan features were lined with worry. "We don't have food enough, for
one thing. Maybe the aliens will get discouraged and go away."
"Hardly. You've forgotten that the bloodhounds are fully automatic,
and unmanned. A machine doesn't discourage very easily."
"We sure as heck ought to be able to outwit a machine," Saxton said.
He thought for a moment. "If we waited until it was across the planet
from us, we might have time to get out, and take another jump toward
home. One more and we'd be far enough in so our own cruisers could
take care of the bloodhound."
Wallace shook his head. "Its speed is too great. Our best chance is
that it doesn't hold to a straight path around the planet. The aliens—
not knowing the size of any body we might land on—wouldn't set it for
a dead-line trajectory. I hope."
There was nothing for them to do until the s-tracer had followed the
movements of their stalker long enough to make an adequate graph.
They decided to go outside while they waited.

Wallace and Saxton took only a few steps—and stopped in

amazement. They had a visitor!
The native rose from his kneeling position on the ground and stood
erect. Wallace studied the face of the naked, stick-thin savage, trying
to penetrate beneath the dirt and grime, beneath the mask of
impassive features, to find the quality that held him in questioning
immobility. For a moment he succeeded.
It was not high intelligence that he found, but rather an innate
conviction of power. A conviction and self-assurance so deep that it
needed no demonstration for expression.
Wallace glanced at Saxton where he leaned against the spaceship's
ramp, the whites of his eyes contrasting sharply with the black of his
clean negroid skin. It was clear that he too sensed the odd quality in
the other. And that he was equally unable to decide whether the
savage that so incuriously regarded first one then the other of them
was to be feared, or accepted as amicable. But both already realized
that this was no ordinary meeting between humans and an outworld
native. They were on the verge of an unusual experience.
The savage had been kneeling with his forehead touching the ground
when they stepped out of the ship. However, now that he stood
before them, there was nothing abject in his demeanor. For a long
minute he did not speak or make any motion other than to regard
them. Casually then he raised his right hand and touched his chest.
"Al-fin," he said.
The meaning of the gesture was apparent: Wallace readily
understood that the savage was giving his name. He touched his own
chest. "Ivan," he murmured.
The native turned his gaze to Saxton.
"Gus," Saxton said, shifting his feet uncomfortably.
The native nodded. "Come!" he commanded. He turned his back and
walked away.
There was no question in Wallace's mind about obeying. It was only
his subconscious that moved his hand, to make certain that his gun
was in its holster, and to glance at Saxton to see that he too was
armed. He had walked several yards before the incongruity struck
him: the savage had spoken Earthian!

They followed the native for several miles over a faint game trail that
wound leisurely through brush and skimpy, small-leaved trees, before
either of the men recovered his composure enough to speak.
"He said 'Come'," Saxton mused. "Yet we're the first humans this far
over the Rim. Where did he learn our language?"
Wallace shrugged. "I've been wondering too," he answered.
"Should we try to talk to him?" Saxton asked, glancing ahead at their
companion.
The native, apparently, had no interest in their conversation. "Better
wait," Wallace suggested.
"I don't understand it." Saxton's tone was querulous. "No one's
allowed over the Rim ahead of us. A section has to be surveyed, and
worlds declared fit for habitation, before colonists can move in. Yet we
land here and find a native speaking our language."
"Perhaps he isn't a native," Wallace said.
"What do you mean?"
"When Earth first discovered spacebridge there were no laws
regulating its use. Limits were put on colonizing areas only after some
of the earlier expeditions failed to report back. One of them might
have been marooned here."
"Then this fellow's human?"
"He could be."
"If he is, would he be naked?" Saxton asked.
"Some of those lost expeditions disappeared as long as two thousand
years ago," Wallace answered. "A colony could have slipped back a
long ways in that time."
"But not this far," Saxton demurred. "They'd still have some traces of
their original culture left."
"A one-ship colony would have very limited mechanical resources,"
Wallace said. "And they'd be isolated here. As soon as the tools and
machines they brought with them wore out they'd be almost
impossible to replace. The odds are they'd slip back fast."
"I don't know." Clearly Saxton wasn't satisfied—but he let the subject
hang. "When we saw him kneeling on the ground, I thought that he
was worshipping us. But since then he's been acting as if he thought
he was the god instead of us."
They were halfway across a small clearing now and before Wallace
could answer the native ahead stopped abruptly. He stood
motionless, with his head tilted to one side, as though listening. After
a moment he motioned them to move to the left.
As Wallace and Saxton obeyed, Al-fin pointed urgently toward their
guns. They drew, and the native turned to stare at the bushes at the
far side of the clearing.
"What does he want?" Saxton asked.
"I don't—" Wallace's answer was cut off as a huge "cat," with long
stilt-like legs spread wide, sprang out of the bushes—directly at them.
Wallace and Saxton sprayed the beams of their guns across the cat's
chest, burning a wide, smoking gash. The beast landed, sprang
again, and died.

Saxton let out a long breath of relief. "Close," he said.

Wallace stood with a puzzled frown on his face. "How did he know
the animal was there?" he asked.
"He must have a good sense of hearing," Saxton answered
doubtfully.
"It can't be that good," Wallace protested.
"Maybe this is our chance to get some fresh meat," Saxton said. He
drew a knife from his belt and knelt beside the cat's carcass. He
made several rapid cuts. After a minute he looked up. "Nothing
edible," he said. "Nothing but skin, gristle, and tendons."
They walked on.

They entered another clearing, and found themselves in the midst of

a group of naked savages, obviously Al-fin's people.
"Where did they come from?" Saxton asked, resting his hand on the
grip of his gun.
Wallace looked his way and shook his head. "No guns," he said.
"We'll have to take the chance that they're friendly."
Most of the members of the group, Wallace observed, were lying on
the ground, or idling about at the edges of the small clearing. He
counted twenty-three—of both sexes, and varying ages. There was
no sign of clothing or ornament on any of them. They were naked,
filthy, and nondescript; yet each had the mark of that quality that had
puzzled them in Al-fin—the deep inner assurance. A few glanced
their way, but without any evidence of an unusual degree of interest.
Their attention returned to Al-fin. Streaks of sweat had made gray
trails on his grimy face, and he gave off an odor that was sharp and
rancid. He sat on the ground and motioned for Wallace and Saxton to
do the same.
Wallace hesitated, then spread his hands resignedly. "This is a
strange game," he said. "We'll let him make the first moves." He and
Saxton sat down together.
Al-fin began speaking, without inflection and with few pauses. Some
of the individual words sounded faintly familiar, but the two men could
make no sense of what he said.
"I'm afraid we can't understand you," Wallace told him. In an aside to
Saxton he said, "He won't understand me either, but I don't think we'd
better ignore him."
Saxton nodded. "I guess you are right about his being human," he
said. "Some of those words were definitely Earthian."
Al-fin raised his voice in a shout, "Il-ma!"
One of the women in the center of the clearing laughed and came
toward them. She was stick-thin, as were Al-fin and most of the
others, and very dirty. As she came near she smiled. Her teeth were
discolored and rotting. She giggled.
Al-fin indicated her with a sweep of his arm. "Mate?" he inquired.
Wallace felt himself reddening. "Is he offering her to us?" he asked
Saxton.
"I think so." Saxton smiled uneasily. "It looks like it's our move now."
"We'll have to risk offending them." Wallace looked at Al-fin and
shook his head vigorously. "No mate," he said.
The woman giggled again and walked away. Al-fin seemed to have
lost interest. He pulled himself jerkily to his feet and went across the
clearing to the fire that the two surveyors had noted earlier. A large
clay kettle rested on a flat rock over the fire.
"There's meat in that kettle," Saxton said, whimsically licking his lips.
"I hope he passes some around."
"I don't think we should eat any," Wallace cautioned.
"Why not?"
"You know the saying, one man's meat...."
"But I'm starved for fresh meat," Saxton argued.
"We'll see if we can get him to give us some," Wallace said. "We can
take it back to the ship and test it before we eat any."
They watched Al-fin as he dug in the kettle with a stick and placed the
food he speared on a large leaf. He carried it to where an old man sat
with his back resting against a tree trunk. The hoary veteran had a
long scar on his right arm that ran from shoulder to elbow; evidently
he had had a brush with one of the big cats sometime in the past.
Oddly enough, he was the only native that was not thin and hungry-
looking.
"He must be the chief," Saxton said. "At least he's well fed."
Wallace nodded.
When Al-fin returned Saxton said, "Meat." At the same time he
rubbed his stomach in a circular motion.
Al-fin paused, thinking over what Saxton had said, then nodded
several times. He made a gesture with his arm for them to follow and
led them to the fat old man. "Meat," Al-fin intoned expressionlessly,
and stood as though waiting for the old man's reply.
"I hope he's in a generous mood," Saxton said.
They had seen no sign from the old man, but Al-fin turned to them
and nodded once more. "Meat," he said. He made no further move.
"Why doesn't he get it?" Saxton asked finally. "Apparently he agrees
—but he just stands there."
"Maybe we're supposed to do something now," Wallace said. "But
what? Do you suppose we're expected to pay him some way?"
"That could be," Saxton answered. "Or maybe the chief's eating the
last of what they have now, and they'll give us a chunk when they get
some more. Anyway, let's not wait any longer. I'm starved. Even
canned concentrate would taste good to me now."

By morning the s-tracer had marked the tracking chart sufficiently to

give them some data on the bloodhound's actions. Wallace went over
it carefully.
Saxton stayed in his bunk and pretended to be still sleepy, but
Wallace could feel his gaze following the work closely. When at last
he looked up Saxton said, "Well?"
"We have something to work on," Wallace answered the question in
his voice. "But unless we get more, I don't see how it will help us.
"The bloodhound," he went on, not waiting for further inquiry from
Saxton, "is acting pretty much as we thought it would. It has no
straight line trajectory. At irregular intervals it circles, backtracks, or
goes off at a new tangent. Often it stays over a particular territory for
longer than the three hours we'd need to get away. It's probable that
at some time it will do this on the other side of the planet—where it
couldn't pick up the signal of our leaving. But...."
Saxton was sitting up now. "But what?"
"It's following a random pattern." Wallace studied his fingernails as he
sought for words to make the explanation clear. "The s-tracer will
show us when it is out of range—but there's no way for us to know
how long it will stay in any one place."
"In other words there will be intervals when it will be directly across
the planet from us. But unless it stayed there for close to three hours
—the time we'd need to clear the atmosphere—it would pick up our
signal as it came around, and run us down?"
"That's about it."
"Then we'll have to take the chance."
"We could. And if we can think of nothing better, we will. But the odds
would be heavily against us. Most of its locale changes are made in a
shorter period of time than we'd need to get away."
"We can't sit here for two years." Saxton was a man whose high-
strung nature demanded action, and was the more inclined of the two
to take chances. Wallace preferred weighing influencing factors
before making any decision.
"I think we'd better wait," Wallace said. "Perhaps we'll be able to think
of something that will give us a better chance."
Saxton pulled the sheet-blanket off his legs irritably, and climbed from
the bunk, but he did not argue.

During the morning Saxton killed a small rodent, but found its flesh as
inedible as that of the cat. Wallace stayed inside studying the charts
and instruments.
They had their noonday meal in a small clearing by the side of the
ship. Wallace had been able to find no way of solving their difficulty.
For want of a better plan they'd decided to wait—while keeping close
track of their stalker.
"I've been thinking about those natives," Wallace said, as they lay
stretched on the grass. "If they are lost colonists—have you
wondered how they managed to survive here so long?"
"I did wonder how they protected themselves against the cats,"
Saxton answered. "They don't seem to have any weapons."
"Al-fin demonstrated that they must have exceptionally good hearing,"
Wallace said. "But would that be enough? You'd think the cats would
get them—when they're sleeping, if not during the day—or kill off their
young."
"That's what I meant," Saxton said. "We saw no weapons, so they
must have some other means of defense."
"They live pretty much like animals," Wallace observed. "Maybe they
stay alive the same way. If animals aren't powerful, they're usually
swift. Or they have some other survival characteristics, such as
prolific propagation. But what do these savages have—except
perhaps the sharp hearing that you mentioned? That alone shouldn't
be a deciding factor. Yet they were able to survive here for two
thousand years."
"How about an instinct of dispersal?" Saxton asked. "There might be
hundreds of groups like the one we saw."
"That would help. But my thought was that if they don't use weapons
they might have gone at it from another angle: they adjusted
themselves, instead of their tools, to their environment."
"Special ability stuff?" Saxton asked.
Wallace glanced over at the other man. By the look of abstraction on
Saxton's face he knew that no answer was necessary. Saxton's
imagination was a moving force. When a subject intrigued him he
could no more abandon it and turn to something else than he could
stop breathing. The trait was one that made him an ideal partner for
Wallace, with his more logical reasoning, and his insistence on
weighing fact against fact and belief against belief. It was, in fact, the
reason the two men had been teamed. One was the intuitive, the
other the harmonizing, controlling, factor in their combination.
Saxton rose and stretched. "I think I'll go inside," he said. "I want to
poke around in the library a while."
Wallace smiled and followed his companion into the ship. This at
least would take Saxton's mind off their troubles. Their enforced
inactivity would be less tedious for the more imaginative man.
Saxton selected several tapes from the book shelf and put them in
the magnifier. "When I find something that sounds likely," he said, "I'll
read it. Stop me if you want to discuss anything I find."

A half-hour later Saxton said, "Socrates maintained that the fewer our
needs, the nearer we resemble gods. Do you suppose Al-fin and his
tribe are approaching godhood?"
Wallace's answer, from the bunk where he lay, was a discourteous
grunt.
"I thought so too," Saxton quipped. He went on reading.
Almost an hour went by before he spoke again. "This might help put
our savages in the proper place in their cycle," he said. "Quote:
'Giambattista Vica, a native of Naples, held a theory that human
history progressed in cycles, each of which followed the same
course. The first move in a civilization began when man, terrified by
the forces of nature, invented and worshipped gods in order to
placate them. Next, he made up myths of demi-gods and heroes, and
arrived at the idea of kingship. Finally, from kingship he came to
democracy, which degenerated into chaos; after which the next cycle
started and the process was repeated."
"Interesting," Wallace said. "But even if it fits, I think we understand
well enough where these people are in their cycle. What we want now
is a clue as to what makes them different."
Wallace was about to doze off when Saxton said, "Listen to this: '... in
which he first injected the hormone that produces milk in the breasts
of nursing mothers into the bloodstream of starved virgin rats and
then introduced newly hatched squabs into their cages. Instead of
devouring the luscious meal placed before them, the starved virgin
animals acted as tender foster mothers to the helpless creatures.'" He
looked across at Wallace expectantly.
"I'm afraid I don't—" Wallace began.
"Don't you see?" Saxton asked. "Something about the food here has
made the natives different. We've got to find that food."
"That might be true also," Wallace answered slowly. "But I'm not as
interested in finding what caused the difference as I am in finding the
difference itself."
"Find one and you find the other," Saxton argued. He held up his
hand as Wallace made as though to speak. "Sleep on it," he said.
"Maybe we'll have some ideas by tomorrow."

They were able to extract no new clues from the tracking of the
bloodhound by the next forenoon. Neither man could arrive at any
means of thwarting the alien machine. Wallace had checked the
graph track minutely, looking for signs of a cycle, or cycles, in its
movements. He ended up convinced that none existed. It apparently
operated entirely at random.
At the mid-day meal Saxton suggested, "Let's pay those fellows in the
woods another visit."
"We may as well," Wallace agreed. "We're helpless here until we can
come up with some new idea."
They finished eating and strapped on their sidearms. They were not
certain that the path they took through the woods was the same they
had taken with Al-fin two days before, but at least it led in the same
general direction.
An hour later they were lost. Their way had not led them to the tribe
of naked savages and they had no idea where else to look. They
were debating whether or not to return to their ship when they
stepped out into a clearing—one larger than any they had come on
earlier.
In the center of the clearing rested a spaceship! From where they
stood they could see that its hull was rusted and weather-beaten.
"That hasn't flown in a long time," Saxton said, after the first few
minutes of wonder.
"Probably not since it first landed here," Wallace answered.
The clearing about the vessel had been kept free of brush and
bushes, and when they went across, and through the open portal of
the ship, they found the inside immaculate.
"They certainly keep it clean," Saxton observed.
"It may be a shrine to them," Wallace said. "That would explain why
we found Al-fin kneeling when we landed, and yet why he treated us
so nonchalantly. He was worshipping our ship, not us."
"I hope they don't find us here," Saxton remarked. "We might be
violating some taboo."
Most of the interior fittings of the vessel, they found, had long ago
rotted away. Only the metal parts still remained intact. The instrument
board was unfamiliar to them. "Pretty definitely an early model,"
Wallace said.
Saxton found something on one wall that held his absorbed interest.
"Come here, Ivan," he called.
"What is it?" Wallace asked, going over to stand beside him.
"Read that."
Wallace read aloud from the engraved plaque: "Spring, 2676. We, the
Dukobors, leave our Earth homes in the hope that we may find a
dwelling place for ourselves and our children, where we may worship
our God as we believe proper. We place ourselves in His hands and
pray that He will watch over us on our journey, and in the time to
come."
"That's over nineteen hundred years ago," Saxton said.
"Soon after the discovery of spacebridge," Wallace added. Without
being aware of it they both spoke in whispers.
They inspected the vessel for some time more, but found little of any
further interest.

A short time after they left the ancient spaceship Wallace and Saxton
stumbled on Al-fin and his group of naked natives.
This time they made a concerted effort to communicate with Al-fin,
and one or two of the others, but with no more success than before.
Neither side could understand more than a few words of the other's
language, and they could accomplish very little with signs.
Al-fin sat with them for a time, until they saw him tilt his head in the
gesture they remembered. On his face was the same expression of
listening. After a moment he rose leisurely and indicated that they
were to follow him. Most of the other natives, Wallace noticed on
rising, had already gone over and bunched together at one end of the
clearing. They appeared restless, but not frightened.
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