Martian Story

Another short story from the archives of our companion party Socialist Party of Canada.

During one of those long weekends that crop up every so often, an adventurous Martian, deciding for a change to visit the earth, gathered the wife and kids together and set off through space. Arriving after a while at his destination, he and his family started out to see the sights and met a sad-looking Earthling. There was a dialogue.

Martian: "Why such a gloomy face, my friend?"

Earthling: "Hungry."

Martian: "Hungry! How come? The crops around here look good. The factories look big and plentiful."

Earthling: "That's just the trouble. The crops are too good. The factories are too plentiful. We've produced too much."

Martian: "Hungry because you've produced too much?"

Earthling: "Say, Mac, what's the matter? Ain't you been around?"

Martian: "Well — ah — I am a stranger in these parts, if that's what you mean. How can you be hungry if you've produced too much?"

Earthling: "That's always the way it is. When you produce too much, you're no longer needed at the factory. You lose your job and this means you have no wages to buy the things you've produced. So you go hungry."

Martian: "That's strange. I'll have to try and figure it out. But how much worse must conditions be when you're not producing too much?"

Earthling: "That's where you're wrong. When there isn't very much, the wheels of industry are turning full time, everybody is working and we have prosperity. When we have the least, that's when we have the most. It's when we have too much that we don't have enough. And when we have too much, we have to wait for the surplus to become wasted or destroyed or used up somehow till there's hardly any left and we can all have enough again."

Martian: "Get the kids back in the saucer, ma! We're going home!"

J.M. (Jim Milne)