Brain Wave,
8.
People who are many times more intelligent than us will cooperate with each other without needing to be coerced. Sometimes everyone will spontaneously see and understand what needs to be done. At other times, when the issues are more complicated, they will agree on practical programs of action after some reasoned discussion. Even in a local community, "'...the mechanically minded...'" (p. 77) will devise automatic machinery for routine tasks.
When Archie Brock, now managing the Rossman farm single-handedly, drives into the nearest town, he finds that:
the streets are empty although the houses seem occupied;
most shops are closed;
the supermarket displays unpriced goods;
the single supermarket attendant explains that -
the national government is no longer relevant;
local life has been rationally reorganized without money;
"property" is an outmoded concept;
most farmers have moved into town houses vacated by those who have moved elsewhere;
most farm work is automated;
the man spends his time doing something that he cannot explain to Archie;
those who disliked the new set-up have left;
those who remain devise new social relationships for their new personalities;
Archie can either join their community or make his own way in a dangerous world with escaped circus animals where a lot of physical labour is necessary just to survive;
(I disagree here. Surely the community could help Archie. But the man says that "charity" is as outmoded as "property.");
decisions are made by the Council and the "Societist" (p. 78);
the economy is not tyrannical but freer than any before it.
I get it that this economy is free but the man needs to spell this out in more detail to Archie who rejects the offer of becoming what he sees as a domestic animal doing whatever chores he is given. He ought to ask more before deciding. Already he has been working hard, reading, thinking, devising a schedule and inventing gadgets. He has some chance of surviving on his own but might also be able to contribute if he does join the community.
Returned to the farm, Archie is attacked by pigs and a bull but rescued by armed chimpanzees riding an elephant! See book cover image here. The chimps become his new allies. This is indeed a brave new world.