Setting: A quiet corner of a bustling Viennese coffeehouse, 1882. Steam curls from porcelain cups. Henry George, sharp-eyed and intense, stirs his coffee restlessly. Nikolai Fyodorov, ascetic and deeply calm, observes him with an unsettling, focused gaze.
George: (Leaning forward) Mr. Fyodorov, your... vision... is staggering. Resurrecting all ancestors? Mastering nature? A colossal task. Yet, I perceive a critical omission. Where is the foundation? Poverty festers now. Men starve today while landlords parasitize Earth's bounty. How can you glimpse eternity if you ignore the stolen loaf in the worker's hand this moment?
Fyodorov: (Softly, patiently) Mr. George, the loaf, the land – pieces of a greater debt. Death is the ultimate injustice, the universal theft. To merely make life bearable without conquering death is tinkering at the edges. Your ‘single tax’... it strikes at rent, yes. But it accepts death’s dominion. Without universal resurrection as the compass, even reclaimed wealth becomes a fleeting spark in infinite darkness. What is land reform without the project to immortalize every soul who ever tilled that land?
George: (Eyes flashing) Fleeting? Justice is never fleeting! Death is a natural law; poverty is a man-made abomination! My tax roots out that abomination at its source – the monopoly on nature itself. It frees labour’s full product! Imagine the progress unleashed! What use is your cosmic venture if it’s built upon the bent backs of the enslaved? Your gathered knowledge rests on foundations of exploitation.
Fyodorov: And your just foundations, Mr. George, crumble into oblivion! What solace is full produce in a life that ends? We are all tenants on Earth, facing the ultimate eviction notice. The ‘natural law’ of death is a human failure to act collectively. Your solution treats rent; mine addresses the root rent charged by the universe itself. Science, once turned from destruction to creation – collective creation – can achieve it. Surely you see? Even your justly distributed plenty serves a higher purpose only if it fuels the Common Task: restoring the fathers.
George: (Frowning) You make land reform sound trivial! A stepping stone? No, sir. It is the cornerstone. Eliminate artificial scarcity, unleash human energy – then your grand schemes might have broad shoulders to stand upon! Without it, your project is... is... a socialist utopia, distracting men from the tangible theft before them! Focus the people's will where it can act – abolish the landlord’s privilege. What is resourced gathered for if not life lived justly and fully here?
Fyodorov: (Slowly) Justice here glorifies the Creator if it illuminates the path to conquering the final injustice. Your 'Single Tax' is potent... if directed towards the Universal Project. Apply it to fund the research, the terraforming, the immense machinery of resurrection. Taxation not merely for roads or schools, but to redeem Time. Make the earth not merely productive, but regenerative – for all who were, as well as all who are. Would that not purify your purpose? Finance immortality, not just equality in decay.
George: (Stunned, laughs sharply) Fund immortality with land rent? You would transmute compensation for stolen wages into... cosmic resurrection bonds? Your pragmatism borders on the absurd, philosopher! My purpose is pure: Earth for the use of the living, fairly. You ask me to chain justice's chariot to a star-chasing cart! Abandon your celestial distractions, Fyodorov! Champion the land tax. Unshackle earthly life first. Grant men true freedom here and now – then let them choose the stars. Focus on the cause of suffering we can actually remedy.
Fyodorov: (Gently shaking his head) Avoid the ultimate remedy, and even freedom grows cynical in death's shadow. Your remedy remains incomplete, economist. Why fight only one landlord? We have a universe to reclaim. Consider the higher application of your insight. Justice demands it. I bid you good day, Mr. George. Ponder the larger ledger. May your impressive numbers ultimately serve life... all life... including the past.
(Fyodorov rises, offers a brief, almost priestly nod, and departs. George stares after him, then down at his unfinished coffee, brow deeply furrowed, tapping his fingers on the table beside his worn copy of "Progress and Poverty". The scales of injustice seem suddenly much, much smaller.)