,the ,servile ,state ,by ,hilaire ,belloc 444 ,if we do not restore the ,institution of ,property we cannot escape restoring the ,institution of ,slavery2 there is no third course4 ,t4,n4 ,foulis ,london ,edinburgh #aiab ,,to ,e4,s4,p4 ,haynes 99 99 99 ,synopsis of the ,servile ,state ,introduction ,the ,subject of this ,book3--,it is written to maintain the thesis that industrial society as we know it will tend towards the re-establishment of slavery4 --,the sections into which the book will be divided ,section ,i ,definitions3--,what wealth is and why necessary to man--,how produced--,the meaning of the words ,capital1 ,proletariat1 ,property1 ,means of ,production--,the definition of the ,capitalist ,state--,the definition of the _/,servile ,state_/--,what it is and what it is not--,the re-establishment of status in the place of contract--,that servitude is not a question of degree but of kind--,summary of these definitions4 ,section ,,ii ,our ,civilisation was originally ,servile3--,the ,servile institution in ,pagan antiquity--,its fundamental character--,a ,pagan society took it for granted--,the institution disturbed by the advent of the ,christian ,church4 ,section ,,iii ,how the ,servile ,institution was for a ,time ,dissolved3--,the subconscious effect of the ,faith in this matter--,the main elements of ,pagan economic society--,the ,villa--,the transformation of the agricultural slave into the ,christian serf--,next into the ,christian peasant--,the corresponding erection throughout ,christendom of the _/,distributive ,state_/--,it is nearly complete at the close of the ,middle ,ages--,it was not machinery that lost us our freedom1 it was the loss of a free mind4 ,section ,,iv ,how the ,distributive ,state ,failed3--,this failure original in ,england--,the story of the decline from ,distributive property to ,capitalism--,the economic revolution of the sixteenth century--,the confiscation of monastic land--,what might have happened had the ,state retained it--,as a fact that land is captured by an oligarchy--,england is ,capitalist before the advent of the industrial revolution--,therefore modern industry1 proceeding from ,england1 has grown in a ,capitalist mould4 ,section ,v ,the ,capitalist ,state in ,proportion as ,it ,grows ,perfect ,grows ,unstable3--,it can of its nature be but a transitory phase lying between an earlier and a later stable state of society--,the two internal strains which render it unstable--7a7 ,the conflict between its social realities and its moral and legal basis--7b7 ,the insecurity and insufficiency to which it condemns free citizens--,the few possessors can grant or withhold livelihood from the many non-possessors--,capitalism is so unstable that it dares not proceed to its own logical conclusion1 but tends to restrict competition among owners1 and insecurity and insufficiency among non-owners4 ,section ,,vi ,the ,stable ,solutions of this ,instability3--,the three stable social arrangements which alone can take the place of unstable ,capitalism--,the ,distributive solution1 the ,collectivist solution1 the ,servile solution--,the reformer will not openly advocate the ,servile solution--,there remain only the ,distributive and the ,collectivist solution4 ,section ,,vii ,socialism is the ,easiest ,apparent ,solution of the ,capitalist ,crux3--,a contrast between the reformer making for ,distribution and the reformer making for ,socialism 7or ,collectivism7--,the difficulties met by the first type--,he is working against the grain--,the second is working with the grain--,collectivism a natural development of ,capitalism--,it appeals both to ,capitalist and ,proletarian--,none the less we shall see that the ,collectivist attempt is doomed to fail and to produce a thing very different from its object--to wit1 the ,servile ,state4 ,section ,,viii ,the ,reformers and ,reformed ,are ,alike ,making for the ,servile ,state3--,there are two types of reformers working along the line of least resistance--,these are the ,socialist and the ,practical ,man--,the ,socialist again is of two kinds1 ,the ,humanist and the ,statistician--,the ,humanist would like both to confiscate from the owners and to establish security and sufficiency for the non-owners--,he is allowed to do the second thing by establishing servile conditions--,he is forbidden to do the first--,the ,statistician is quite content so long as he can run and organise the poor--,both are canalised towards the ,servile ,state and both are shepherded off their ideal ,collectivist ,state--,meanwhile the great mass1 the proletariat1 upon whom the reformers are at work1 though retaining the instinct of ownership1 has lost any experience of it and is subject to private law much more than to the law of the ,courts--,this is exactly what happened in the past during the converse change from ,slavery to ,freedom--,private ,law became stronger than ,public at the beginning of the ,dark ,ages--,the owners welcomed the changes which maintained them in ownership and yet increased the security of their revenue--to-day the non-owners will welcome whatever keeps them a wage-earning class but increases their wages and their security without insisting on the expropriation of the owners4 ,appendix on ,buying-,out ,an ,appendix showing that the ,collectivist proposal to ,buy-,out the ,capitalist in lieu of expropriating him is vain4 ,section ,,ix ,the ,servile ,state ,has ,begun3--,the manifestation of the ,servile ,state in law or proposals of law will fall into two sorts--7a7 ,laws or proposals of law compelling the proletariat to work--7b7 ,financial operations riveting the grip of capitalists more strongly upon society--,as to 7a71 we find it _/already_/ at work in measures such as the ,insurance ,act and proposals such as ,compulsory ,arbitration1 the enforcement of ,trades ,union bargains and the erection of ,labour ,colonies1 etc41 for the unemployable--,as to the second1 we find that so-called ,municipal or ,socialist experiments in acquiring the means of production have _/already_/ increased and are continually increasing the dependence of society upon the ,capitalist4 ,conclusion 99 99 99 ,the ,servile ,state 99 99 99 ,introduction ,the ,subject of ,this ,book ,this book is written to maintain and prove the following truth3-- ,that our free modern society in which the means of production are owned by a few being necessarily in unstable equilibrium1 it is tending to reach a condition of stable equilibrium _/by the establishment of compulsory labour legally enforcible upon those who do not own the means of production for the advantage of those who do_/4 ,with this principle of compulsion applied against the non-owners there must also come a difference in their status2 and in the eyes of society and of its positive law men will be divided into two sets3 the first economically free and politically free1 possessed of the means of production1 and securely confirmed in that possession2 the second economically unfree and politically unfree1 but at first secured by their very lack of freedom in certain necessaries of life and in a minimum of well-being beneath which they shall not fall4 ,society having reached such a condition would be released from its present internal strains and would have taken on a form which would be stable3 that is1 capable of being indefinitely prolonged without change4 ,in it would be resolved the various factors of instability which increasingly disturb that form of society called ,capitalist1 and men would be satisfied to accept1 and to continue in1 such a settlement4 ,to such a stable society ,i shall give1 for reasons which will be described in the next section1 the title of ,,the ,,servile ,,state4 ,i shall not undertake to judge whether this approaching organisation of our modern society be good or evil4 ,i shall concern myself only with showing the necessary tendency towards it which has long existed and the recent social provisions which show that it has actually begun4 ,this new state will be acceptable to those who desire consciously or by implication the re-establishment among us of a difference of status between possessor and non-possessor3 it will be distasteful to those who regard such a distinction with ill favour or with dread4 ,my business will not be to enter into the discussion between these two types of modern thinkers1 but to point out to each and to both that that which the one favours and the other would fly is upon them4 ,i shall prove my thesis in particular from the case of the industrial society of ,great ,britain1 including that small1 alien1 and exceptional corner of ,ireland1 which suffers or enjoys industrial conditions to-day4 ,i shall divide the matter thus3-- 7#a7 ,i shall lay down certain definitions4 7#b7 ,next1 ,i shall describe the institution of slavery and _/,the ,servile ,state_/ of which it is the basis1 as these were in the ancient world4 ,i shall then3 7#c7 ,sketch very briefly the process whereby that age-long institution of slavery was slowly dissolved during the ,christian centuries1 and whereby the resulting medieval system1 based upon highly divided property in the means of production1 was 7#d7 wrecked in certain areas of ,europe as it approached completion1 and had substituted for it1 in practice though not in legal theory1 a society based upon _/,capitalism_/4 7#e7 ,next1 ,i shall show how ,capitalism was of its nature unstable1 because its social realities were in conflict with all existing or possible systems of law1 and because its effects in denying sufficiency and security were intolerable to men2 how being thus unstable1 it consequently presented a problem which demanded a solution3 to wit1 the establishment of some stable form of society whose law and social practice should correspond1 and whose economic results1 by providing sufficiency and security1 should be tolerable to human nature4 7#f7 ,i shall next present the only three possible solutions3-- 7a7 ,collectivism1 or the placing of the means of production in the hands of the political officers of the community4 7b7 ,property1 or the re-establishment of a ,distributive ,state in which the mass of citizens should severally own the means of production4 7c7 ,slavery1 or a ,servile ,state in which those who do not own the means of production shall be legally compelled to work for those who do1 and shall receive in exchange a security of livelihood4 ,now1 seeing the distaste which the remains of our long ,christian tradition has bred in us for directly advocating the third solution and boldly supporting the re-establishment of slavery1 the first two alone are open to reformers3 7#a7 a reaction towards a condition of well-divided property or the ,distributive ,state2 7#b7 an attempt to achieve the ideal ,collectivist ,state4 ,it can easily be shown that this second solution appeals most naturally and easily to a society already ,capitalist on account of the difficulty which such a society has to discover the energy1 the will1 and the vision requisite for the first solution4 7#g7 ,i shall next proceed to show how the pursuit of this ideal ,collectivist ,state which is bred of ,capitalism leads men acting upon a ,capitalist society not towards the ,collectivist ,state nor anything like it1 but to that third utterly different thing--the ,servile ,state4 ,to this eighth section ,i shall add an appendix showing how the attempt to achieve ,collectivism gradually by public purchase is based upon an illusion4 7#h7 ,recognising that theoretical argument of this kind1 though intellectually convincing1 is not sufficient to the establishment of my thesis1 ,i shall conclude by giving examples from modern ,english legislation1 which examples prove that the ,servile ,state is actually upon us4 ,such is the scheme ,i design for this book4 ,section ,one ,definitions ,man1 like every other organism1 can only live by the transformation of his environment to his own use4 ,he must transform his environment from a condition where it is less to a condition where it is more subservient to his needs4 ,that special1 conscious1 and intelligent transformation of his environment which is peculiar to the peculiar intelligence and creative faculty of man we call the ,production of ,wealth4 ,wealth is matter which has been consciously and intelligently transformed from a condition in which it is less to a condition in which it is more serviceable to a human need4 ,without ,wealth man cannot exist4 ,the production of it is a necessity to him1 and though it proceeds from the more to the less necessary1 and even to those forms of production which we call luxuries1 yet in any given human society there is a certain kind and a certain amount of wealth without which human life cannot be lived3 as1 for instance1 in ,england to-day1 certain forms of cooked and elaborately prepared food1 clothing1 warmth1 and habitation4 ,therefore1 to control the production of wealth is to control human life itself4 ,to refuse man the opportunity for the production of wealth is to refuse him the opportunity for life2 and1 in general1 the way in which the production of wealth is by law permitted is the only way in which the citizens can legally exist4 ,wealth can only be produced by the application of human energy1 mental and physical1 to the forces of nature around us1 and to the material which those forces inform4 ,this human energy so applicable to the material world and its forces we will call ,labour4 ,as for that material and those natural forces1 we will call them1 for the sake of shortness1 by the narrow1 but conventionally accepted1 term ,land4 ,it would seem1 therefore1 that all problems connected with the production of wealth1 and all discussion thereupon1 involve but two principal original factors1 to wit1 ,labour and ,land1 ,but it so happens that the conscious1 artificial1 and intelligent action of man upon nature1 corresponding to his peculiar character compared with other created beings1 introduces a third factor of the utmost importance4 ,man proceeds to create wealth by ingenious methods of varying and often increasing complexity1 and aids himself by the construction of implements4 ,these soon become in each new department of the production as truly necessary to that production as labour and land4 ,further1 any process of production takes a certain time2 during that time the producer must be fed1 and clothed1 and housed1 and the rest of it4 ,there must therefore be an accumulation of wealth created in the past1 and reserved with the object of maintaining labour during its effort to produce for the future4 ,whether it be the making of an instrument or tool1 or the setting aside of a store of provisions1 labour applied to land for either purpose is not producing wealth for immediate consumption4 ,it is setting aside and reserving somewhat1 and that somewhat is always necessary in varying proportions according to the simplicity or complexity of the economic society to the production of wealth4 ,to such wealth reserved and set aside for the purposes of future production1 and not for immediate consumption1 whether it be in the form of instruments and tools1 or in the form of stores for the maintenance of labour during the process of production1 we give the name of ,capital4 ,there are thus three factors in the production of all human wealth1 which we may conventionally term ,land1 ,capital1 and ,labour4 ,when we talk of the ,means of ,production we signify land and capital combined4 ,thus1 when we say that a man is dispossessed of the means of production1 or cannot produce wealth save by the leave of another who possesses the means of production1 we mean that he is the master only of his labour and has no control1 in any useful amount1 over either capital1 or land1 or both combined4 ,a man politically free1 that is1 one who enjoys the right before the law to exercise his energies when he pleases 7or not at all if he does not so please71 but not possessed by legal right of control over any useful amount of the means of production1 we call proletarian1 and any considerable class composed of such men we call a proletariat4 ,property is a term used for that arrangement in society whereby the control of land and of wealth made from land1 including therefore all the means of production1 is vested in some person or corporation4 ,thus we may say of a building1 including the land upon which it stands1 that it is the property of such and such a citizen1 or family1 or college1 or of the ,state1 meaning that those who own such property are guaranteed by the laws in the right to use it or withhold it from use4 ,private property signifies such wealth 7including the means of production7 as may1 by the arrangements of society1 be in the control of persons or corporations other than the political bodies of which these persons or corporations are in another aspect members4 ,what distinguishes private property is not that the possessor thereof is less than the ,state1 or is only a part of the ,state 7for were that so we should talk of municipal property as private property71 but rather that the owner may exercise his control over it to his own advantage1 and not as a trustee for society1 nor in the hierarchy of political institutions4 ,thus ,mr ,jones is a citizen of ,manchester1 but he does not own his private property as a citizen of ,manchester1 he owns it as ,mr ,jones1 whereas1 if the house next to his own be owned by the ,manchester municipality1 they own it only because they are a political body standing for the whole community of the town4 ,mr ,jones might move to ,glasgow and still own his property in ,manchester1 but the municipality of ,manchester can only own its property in connection with the corporate political life of the town4 ,an ideal society in which the means of production should be in the hands of the political officers of the community we call ,collectivist1 or more generally ,socialist4#a ,a society in which private property in land and capital1 that is1 the ownership and therefore the control of the means of production1 is confined to some number of free citizens not large enough to determine the social mass of the ,state1 while the rest have not such property and are therefore proletarian1 we call ,capitalist2 and the method by which wealth is produced in such a society can only be the application of labour1 the determining mass of which must necessarily be proletarian1 to land and capital1 in such fashion that1 of the total wealth produced1 the ,proletariat which labours shall only receive a portion4 ,the two marks1 then1 defining the ,capitalist ,state are3 7#a7 ,that the citizens thereof are politically free3 i4e4 can use or withhold at will their possessions or their labour1 but are also 7#b7 divided into capitalist and proletarian in such proportions that the ,state as a whole is not characterised by the institution of ownership among free citizens1 but by the restriction of ownership to a section markedly less than the whole1 or even to a small minority4 ,such a ,capitalist ,state is essentially divided into two classes of free citizens1 the one capitalist or owning1 the other propertyless or proletarian4 ,my last definition concerns the ,servile ,state itself1 and since the idea is both somewhat novel and also the subject of this book1 ,i will not only establish but expand its definition4 ,the definition of the ,servile ,state is as follows3-- ,that arrangement of society in which so considerable a number of the families and individuals are constrained by positive law to labour for the advantage of other families and individuals as to stamp the whole community with the mark of such labour we call _/,the ,servile ,state_/4 ,note first certain negative limitations in the above which must be clearly seized if we are not to lose clear thinking in a fog of metaphor and rhetoric4 ,that society is not servile in which men are intelligently constrained to labour by enthusiasm1 by a religious tenet1 or indirectly from fear of destitution1 or directly from love of gain1 or from the common sense which teaches them that by their labour they may increase their well-being4 ,a clear boundary exists between the servile and the non-servile condition of labour1 and the conditions upon either side of that boundary utterly differ one from another1 ,where there is compulsion applicable by positive law to men of a certain status1 and such compulsion enforced in the last resort by the powers at the disposal of the ,state1 there is the institution of ,slavery2 and if that institution be sufficiently expanded the whole ,state may be said to repose upon a servile basis1 and is a ,servile ,state4 ,where such formal1 legal status is absent the conditions are not servile2 and the difference between servitude and freedom1 appreciable in a thousand details of actual life1 is most glaring in this3 that the free man can refuse his labour and use that refusal as an instrument wherewith to bargain2 while the slave has no such instrument or power to bargain at all1 but is dependent for his well-being upon the custom of society1 backed by the regulation of such of its laws as may protect and guarantee the slave4 ,next1 let it be observed that the ,state is not servile because the mere institution of slavery is to be discovered somewhere within its confines4 ,the ,state is only servile when so considerable a body of forced labour is affected by the compulsion of positive law as to give a character to the whole community4 ,similarly1 that ,state is not servile in which all citizens are liable to submit their energies to the compulsion of positive law1 and must labour at the discretion of ,state officials4 ,by loose metaphor and for rhetorical purposes men who dislike ,collectivism 7for instance7 or the discipline of a regiment will talk of the servile conditions of such organisations4 ,but for the purposes of strict definition and clear thinking it is essential to remember that a servile condition only exists by contrast with a free condition4 ,the servile condition is present in society only when there is also present the free citizen for whose benefit the slave works under the compulsion of positive law4 ,again1 it should be noted that this word servile in no way connotes the worst1 nor even necessarily a bad1 arrangement of society1 ,this point is so clear that it should hardly delay us2 but a confusion between the rhetorical and the precise use of the word servile ,i have discovered to embarrass public discussion of the matter so much that ,i must once more emphasise what should be self-evident4 ,the discussion as to whether the institution of slavery be a good or a bad one1 or be relatively better or worse than other alternative institutions1 has nothing whatever to do with the exact definition of that institution4 ,thus ,monarchy consists in throwing the responsibility for the direction of society upon an individual4 ,one can imagine some ,roman of the first century praising the new ,imperial power1 but through a muddle-headed tradition against kings swearing that he would never tolerate a monarchy4 ,such a fellow would have been a very futile critic of public affairs under ,trajan1 but no more futile than a man who swears that nothing shall make him a slave1 though well prepared to accept laws that compel him to labour without his consent1 under the force of public law1 and upon terms dictated by others4 ,many would argue that a man so compelled to labour1 guaranteed against insecurity and against insufficiency of food1 housing and clothing1 promised subsistence for his old age1 and a similar set of advantages for his posterity1 would be a great deal better off than a free man lacking all these things4 ,but the argument does not affect the definition attaching to the word servile4 ,a devout ,christian of blameless life drifting upon an ice-flow in the ,arctic night1 without food or any prospect of succour1 is not so comfortably circumstanced as the ,khedive of ,egypt2 but it would be folly in establishing the definition of the words ,christian and ,mahommedan to bring this contrast into account4 ,we must then1 throughout this inquiry1 keep strictly to the economic aspect of the case4 ,only when that is established and when the modern tendency to the re-establishment of slavery is clear1 are we free to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the revolution through which we are passing4 ,it must further be grasped that the essential mark of the ,servile ,institution does not depend upon the ownership of the slave by a particular master4 ,that the institution of slavery tends to that form under the various forces composing human nature and human society is probable enough4 ,that if or when slavery were re-established in ,england a particular man would in time be found the slave not of ,capitalism in general but of1 say1 the ,shell ,oil ,trust in particular1 is a very likely development2 and we know that in societies where the institution was of immemorial antiquity such direct possession of the slave by the free man or corporation of free men had come to be the rule4 ,but my point is that such a mark is not essential to the character of slavery4 ,as an initial phase in the institution of slavery1 or even as a permanent phase marking society for an indefinite time1 it is perfectly easy to conceive of a whole class rendered servile by positive law1 and compelled by such law to labour for the advantage of another non-servile free class1 without any direct act of possession permitted to one man over the person of another4 ,the final contrast thus established between slave and free might be maintained by the ,state guaranteeing to the un-free1 security in their subsistence1 to the free1 security in their property and profits1 rent and interest4 ,what would mark the slave in such a society would be his belonging to that set or status which was compelled by no matter what definition to labour1 and was thus cut off from the other set or status not compelled to labour1 but free to labour or not as it willed4 ,again1 the ,servile ,state would certainly exist even though a man1 being only compelled to labour during a portion of his time1 were free to bargain and even to accumulate in his free time4 ,the old lawyers used to distinguish between a serf in gross and a serf regardant4 ,a serf in gross was one who was a serf at all times and places1 and not in respect to a particular lord4 ,a serf regardant was a serf only in his bondage to serve a particular lord4 ,he was free as against other men4 ,and one might perfectly well have slaves who were only slaves regardant to a particular type of employment during particular hours4 ,but they would be slaves none the less1 and if their hours were many and their class numerous1 the ,state which they supported would be a ,servile ,state4 ,lastly1 let it be remembered that the servile condition remains as truly an institution of the ,state when it attaches permanently and irrevocably at any one time to a particular set of human beings as when it attaches to a particular class throughout their lives4 ,thus the laws of ,paganism permitted the slave to be enfranchised by his master3 it further permitted children or prisoners to be sold into slavery4 ,the ,servile ,institution1 though perpetually changing in the elements of its composition1 was still an unchanging factor in the ,state4 ,similarly1 though the ,state should only subject to slavery those who had less than a certain income1 while leaving men free by inheritance or otherwise to pass out of1 and by loss to pass into1 the slave class1 that slave class1 though fluctuating as to its composition1 would still permanently exist4 ,thus1 if the modern industrial ,state shall make a law by which servile conditions shall not attach to those capable of earning more than a certain sum by their own labour1 but shall attach to those who earn less than this sum2 or if the modern industrial ,state defines manual labour in a particular fashion1 renders it compulsory during a fixed time for those who undertake it1 but leaves them free to turn later to other occupations if they choose1 undoubtedly such distinctions1 though they attach to conditions and not to individuals1 establish the ,servile ,institution4 ,some considerable number must be manual workers by definition1 and while they were so defined would be slaves4 ,here again the composition of the ,servile class would fluctuate1 but the class would be permanent and large enough to stamp all society4 ,i need not insist upon the practical effect3 that such a class1 once established1 tends to be fixed in the great majority of those which make it up1 and that the individuals entering or leaving it tend to become few compared to the whole mass4 ,there is one last point to be considered in this definition4 ,it is this3-- ,since1 in the nature of things1 a free society must enforce a contract 7a free society consisting in nothing else but the enforcement of free contracts71 how far can that be called a ,servile condition which is the result of contract nominally or really free8 ,in other words1 is not a contract to labour1 however freely entered into1 servile of its nature when enforced by the ,state8 ,for instance1 ,i have no food or clothing1 nor do ,i possess the means of production whereby ,i can produce any wealth in exchange for such4 ,i am so circumstanced that an owner of the ,means of ,production will not allow me access to those ,means unless ,i sign a contract to serve him for a week at a wage of bare subsistence4 ,does the ,state in enforcing that contract make me for that week a slave8 ,obviously not4 ,for the institution of ,slavery presupposes a certain attitude of mind in the free man and in the slave1 a habit of living in either1 and the stamp of both those habits upon society4 ,no such effects are produced by a contract enforceable by the length of one week4 ,the duration of human life is such1 and the prospect of posterity1 that the fulfilling of such a contract in no way wounds the senses of liberty and of choice4 ,what of a month1 a year1 ten years1 a lifetime8 ,suppose an extreme case1 and a destitute man to sign a contract binding him and all his children who were minors to work for a bare subsistence until his own death1 or the attainment of majority of the children1 whichever event might happen latest2 would the ,state in forcing that contract be making the man a slave8 ,as undoubtedly as it would not be making him a slave in the first case1 it would be making him a slave in the second4 ,one can only say to ancient sophistical difficulties of this kind1 that the sense of men establishes for itself the true limits of any object1 as of freedom4 ,what freedom is1 or is not1 in so far as mere measure of time is concerned 7though of course much else than time enters in71 human habit determines2 but the enforcing of a contract of service certainly or probably leaving a choice after its expiration is consonant with freedom4 ,the enforcement of a contract probably binding one's whole life is not consonant with freedom4 ,one binding to service a man's natural heirs is intolerable to freedom4 ,consider another converse point4 ,a man binds himself to work for life and his children after him so far as the law may permit him to bind them in a particular society1 but that not for a bare subsistence1 but for so large a wage that he will be wealthy in a few years1 and his posterity1 when the contract is completed1 wealthier still4 ,does the ,state in forcing such a contract make the fortunate employee a slave8 ,no4 ,for it is in the essence of slavery that subsistence or little more than subsistence should be guaranteed to the slave4 ,slavery exists in order that the ,free should benefit by its existence1 and connotes a condition in which the men subjected to it may demand secure existence1 but little more4 ,if anyone were to draw an exact line1 and to say that a life-contract enforceable by law was slavery at so many shillings a week1 but ceased to be slavery after that margin1 his effort would be folly4 ,none the less1 there is a standard of subsistence in any one society1 the guarantee of which 7or little more7 under an obligation to labour by compulsion is slavery1 while the guarantee of very much more is not slavery4 ,this verbal jugglery might be continued4 ,it is a type of verbal difficulty apparent in every inquiry open to the professional disputant1 but of no effect upon the mind of the honest inquirer whose business is not dialectic but truth4 ,it is always possible by establishing a cross-section in a set of definitions to pose the unanswerable difficulty of degree1 but that will never affect the realities of discussion4 ,we know1 for instance1 what is meant by torture when it exists in a code of laws1 and when it is forbidden4 ,no imaginary difficulties of degree between pulling a man's hair and scalping him1 between warming him and burning him alive1 will disturb a reformer whose business it is to expunge torture from some penal code4 ,in the same way we know what is and what is not compulsory labour1 what is and what is not the ,servile ,condition4 ,its test is1 ,i repeat1 the withdrawal from a man of his free choice to labour or not to labour1 here or there1 for such and such an object2 and the compelling of him by positive law to labour for the advantage of others who do not fall under the same compulsion4 ,where you have that1 you have slavery3 with all the manifold1 spiritual1 and political results of that ancient institution4 ,where you have slavery affecting a class of such considerable size as to mark and determine the character of the ,state1 there you have the ,servile ,state4 99 99 99 99 99 ,to sum up1 then3--,the _/,servile ,state_/ is that in which we find so considerable a body of families and individuals distinguished from free citizens by the mark of compulsory labour as to stamp a general character upon society1 and all the chief characters1 good or evil1 attaching to the institution of slavery will be found permeating such a ,state1 whether the slaves be directly and personally attached to their masters1 only indirectly attached through the medium of the ,state1 or attached in a third manner through their subservience to corporations or to particular industries4 ,the slave so compelled to labour will be one dispossessed of the means of production1 and compelled by law to labour for the advantage of all or any who are possessed thereof4 ,and the distinguishing mark of the slave proceeds from the special action upon him of a positive law which first separates one body of men1 the less-free1 from another1 the more free1 in the function of contract within the general body of the community4 ,now1 from a purely ,servile conception of production and of the arrangement of society we ,europeans sprang4 ,the ,immemorial past of ,europe is a ,servile past4 ,during some centuries which the ,church raised1 permeated1 and constructed1 ,europe was gradually released or divorced from this immemorial and fundamental conception of slavery2 to that conception1 to that institution1 our ,industrial or ,capitalist society is now upon its return4 ,we are re-establishing the slave4 99 99 99 99 99 ,before proceeding to the proof of this1 ,i shall1 in the next few pages1 digress to sketch very briefly the process whereby the old ,pagan slavery was transformed into a free society some centuries ago4 ,i shall then outline the further process whereby the new non-servile society was wrecked at the ,reformation in certain areas of ,europe1 and particularly in ,england4 ,there was gradually produced in its stead the transitory phase of society 7now nearing its end7 called generally ,capitalism or the ,capitalist ,state4 ,such a digression1 being purely historical1 is not logically necessary to a consideration of our subject1 but it is of great value to the reader1 because the knowledge of how1 in reality and in the concrete1 things have moved better enables us to understand the logical process whereby they tend towards a particular goal in the future4 ,one could prove the tendency towards the ,servile ,state in ,england to-day to a man who knew nothing of the past of ,europe2 but that tendency will seem to him far more reasonably probable1 far more a matter of experience and less a matter of mere deduction1 when he knows what our society once was1 and how it changed into what we know to-day4 ,section ,two ,our ,civilisation ,was ,originally ,servile ,in no matter what field of the ,european past we make our research1 we find1 from two thousand years ago upwards1 one fundamental institution whereupon the whole of society reposes2 that fundamental institution is ,slavery4 ,there is here no distinction between the highly civilised ,city-,state of the ,mediterranean1 with its letters1 its plastic art1 and its code of laws1 with all that makes a civilisation--and this stretching back far beyond any surviving record1--there is here no distinction between that civilised body and the ,northern and ,western societies of the ,celtic tribes1 or of the little known hordes that wandered in the ,germanies4 ,all indifferently reposed upon slavery4 ,it was a fundamental conception of society4 ,it was everywhere present1 nowhere disputed4 ,there is a distinction 7or would appear to be7 between ,europeans and ,asiatics in this matter4 ,the religion and morals of the one so differed in their very origin from those of the other that every social institution was touched by the contrast--and ,slavery among the rest4 ,but with that we need not concern ourselves4 ,my point is that our ,european ancestry1 those men from whom we are descended and whose blood runs with little admixture in our veins1 took slavery for granted1 made of it the economic pivot upon which the production of wealth should turn1 and never doubted but that it was normal to all human society4 ,it is a matter of capital importance to seize this4 ,an arrangement of such a sort would not have endured without intermission 7and indeed without question7 for many centuries1 nor have been found emerging fully grown from that vast space of unrecorded time during which barbarism and civilisation flourished side by side in ,europe1 had there not been something in it1 good or evil1 native to our blood4 ,there was no question in those ancient societies from which we spring of making subject races into slaves by the might of conquering races4 ,all that is the guess-work of the universities4 ,not only is there no proof of it1 rather all the existing proof is the other way4 ,the ,greek had a ,greek slave1 the ,latin a ,latin slave1 the ,german a ,german slave1 the ,celt a ,celtic slave4 ,the theory that superior races invaded a land1 either drove out the original inhabitants or reduced them to slavery1 is one which has no argument either from our present knowledge of man's mind or from recorded evidence4 ,indeed1 the most striking feature of that ,servile ,basis upon which ,paganism reposed was the human equality recognised between master and slave4 ,the master might kill the slave1 but both were of one race and each was human to the other4 ,this spiritual value was not1 as a further pernicious piece of guess-work would dream1 a growth or a progress4 ,the doctrine of human equality was inherent in the very stuff of antiquity1 as it is inherent in those societies which have not lost tradition4 ,we may presume that the barbarian of the ,north would grasp the great truth with less facility than the civilised man of the ,mediterranean1 because barbarism everywhere shows a retrogression in intellectual power2 but the proof that the ,servile ,institution was a social arrangement rather than a distinction of type is patent from the coincidence everywhere of ,emancipation with ,slavery4 ,pagan ,europe not only thought the existence of ,slaves a natural necessity to society1 but equally thought that upon giving a ,slave his freedom the enfranchised man would naturally step1 though perhaps after the interval of some lineage1 into the ranks of free society4 ,great poets and great artists1 statesmen and soldiers were little troubled by the memory of a servile ancestry4 ,on the other hand1 there was a perpetual recruitment of the ,servile ,institution1 just as there was a perpetual emancipation from it1 proceeding year after year2 and the natural or normal method of recruitment is most clearly apparent to us in the simple and barbaric societies which the observation of contemporary civilised ,pagans enables us to judge4 ,it was poverty that made the slave4 ,prisoners of war taken in set combat afforded one mode of recruitment1 and there was also the raiding of men by pirates in the outer lands and the selling of them in the slave markets of the ,south4 ,but at once the cause of the recruitment and the permanent support of the institution of slavery was the indigence of the man who sold himself into slavery1 or was born into it2 for it was a rule of ,pagan ,slavery that the slave bred the slave1 and that even if one of the parents were free the offspring was a slave4 ,the society of antiquity1 therefore1 was normally divided 7as must at last be the society of any servile state7 into clearly marked sections3 there was upon the one hand the citizen who had a voice in the conduct of the ,state1 who would often labour--but labour of his own free will--and who was normally possessed of property2 upon the other hand1 there was a mass dispossessed of the means of production and compelled by positive law to labour at command4 ,it is true that in the further developments of society the accumulation of private savings by a slave was tolerated and that slaves so favoured did sometimes purchase their freedom4 ,it is further true that in the confusion of the last generations of ,paganism there arose in some of the great cities a considerable class of men who1 though free1 were dispossessed of the means of production4 ,but these last never existed in a sufficient proportion to stamp the whole ,state of society with a character drawn from their proletarian circumstance4 ,to the end the ,pagan world remained a world of free proprietors possessed1 in various degrees1 of the land and of the capital whereby wealth may be produced1 and applying to that land and capital for the purpose of producing wealth1 compulsory labour4 ,certain features in that original ,servile ,state from which we all spring should be carefully noted by way of conclusion4 ,first1 though all nowadays contrast slavery with freedom to the advantage of the latter1 yet men then accepted slavery freely as an alternative to indigence4 ,secondly 7and this is most important for our judgment of the ,servile ,institution as a whole1 and of the chances of its return71 in all those centuries we find no organised effort1 nor 7what is still more significant7 do we find any complaint of conscience against the institution which condemned the bulk of human beings to forced labour4 ,slaves may be found in the literary exercises of the time bewailing their lot and joking about it2 some philosophers will complain that an ideal society should contain no slaves2 others will excuse the establishment of slavery upon this plea or that1 while granting that it offends the dignity of man4 ,the greater part will argue of the ,state that it is necessarily ,servile4 ,but no one1 slave or free1 dreams of abolishing or even of changing the thing4 ,you have no martyrs for the case of freedom as against slavery4 ,the so-called ,servile wars are the resistance on the part of escaped slaves to any attempt at recapture1 but they are not accompanied by an accepted affirmation that servitude is an intolerable thing2 nor is that note struck at all from the unknown beginnings to the ,catholic endings of the ,pagan world4 ,slavery is irksome1 undignified1 woeful2 but it is1 to them1 of the nature of things4 ,you may say1 to be brief1 that this arrangement of society was the very air which ,pagan ,antiquity breathed4 ,its great works1 its leisure and its domestic life1 its humour1 its reserves of power1 all depend upon the fact that its society was that of the ,servile ,state4 ,men were happy in that arrangement1 or1 at least1 as happy as men ever are4 ,the attempt to escape by a personal effort1 whether of thrift1 of adventure1 or of flattery to a master1 from the ,servile condition had never even so much of driving power behind it as the attempt many show to-day to escape from the rank of wage-earners to those of employers4 ,servitude did not seem a hell into which a man would rather die than sink1 or out of which at any sacrifice whatsoever a man would raise himself4 ,it was a condition accepted by those who suffered it as much as by those who enjoyed it1 and a perfectly necessary part of all that men did and thought4 ,you find no barbarian from some free place astonished at the institution of ,slavery2 you find no ,slave pointing to a society in which ,slavery was unknown as towards a happier land4 ,to our ancestors not only for those few centuries during which we have record of their actions1 but apparently during an illimitable past1 the division of society into those who must work under compulsion and those who would benefit by their labour was the very plan of the ,state apart from which they could hardly think of society as existing at all4 ,let all this be clearly grasped4 ,it is fundamental to an understanding of the problem before us4 ,slavery is no novel experience in the history of ,europe2 nor is one suffering an odd dream when one talks of ,slavery as acceptable to ,european men4 ,slavery was of the very stuff of ,europe for thousands upon thousands of years1 until ,europe engaged upon that considerable moral experiment called ,the ,faith1 which many believe to be now accomplished and discarded1 and in the failure of which it would seem that the old and primary institution of ,slavery must return4 ,for there came upon us ,europeans after all those centuries1 and centuries of a settled social order which was erected upon ,slavery as upon a sure foundation1 the experiment called the ,christian ,church4 ,among the by-products of this experiment1 very slowly emerging from the old ,pagan world1 and not long completed before ,christendom itself suffered a shipwreck1 was the exceedingly gradual transformation of the ,servile ,state into something other3 a society of owners4 ,and how that something other did proceed from the ,pagan ,servile ,state ,i will next explain4 ,section ,three ,how the ,servile ,institution ,was for a ,time ,dissolved ,the process by which slavery disappeared among ,christian men1 though very lengthy in its development 7it covered close upon a thousand years71 and though exceedingly complicated in its detail1 may be easily and briefly grasped in its main lines4 ,let it first be clearly understood that the vast revolution through which the ,european mind passed bet ween the first and the fourth centuries 7that revolution which is often termed the ,conversion of the ,world to ,christianity1 but which should for purposes of historical accuracy be called the ,growth of the ,church7 included no attack upon the ,servile ,institution4 ,no dogma of the ,church pronounced ,slavery to be immoral1 or the sale and purchase of men to be a sin1 or the imposition of compulsory labour upon a ,christian to be a contravention of any human right4 ,the emancipation of ,slaves was indeed regarded as a good work by the ,faithful3 but so was it regarded by the ,pagan4 ,it was1 on the face of it1 a service rendered to one's fellowmen4 ,the sale of ,christians to ,pagan masters was abhorrent to the later empire of the ,barbarian ,invasions1 not because slavery in itself was condemned1 but because it was a sort of treason to civilisation to force men away from ,civilisation to ,barbarism4 ,in general you will discover no pronouncement against slavery as an institution1 nor any moral definition attacking it1 throughout all those early ,christian centuries during which it none the less effectively disappears4 ,the form of its disappearance is well worth noting4 ,it begins with the establishment as the fundamental unit of production in ,western ,europe of those great landed estates1 commonly lying in the hands of a single proprietor1 and generally known as _/,villae_/4 ,there were1 of course1 many other forms of human agglomeration3 small peasant farms owned in absolute proprietorship by their petty masters2 groups of free men associated in what was called a ,vicus2 manufactories in which groups of slaves were industrially organised to the profit of their master2 and1 governing the regions around them1 the scheme of ,roman towns4 ,but of all these the ,villa the dominating type2 and as society passed from the high civilisation of the first four centuries into the simplicity of the ,dark ,ages1 the ,villa1 the unit of agricultural production1 became more and more the model of all society4 ,now the ,villa began as a considerable extent of land1 containing1 like a modern ,english estate1 pasture1 arable1 water1 wood and heath1 or waste land4 ,it was owned by a dominus or lord in absolute proprietorship1 to sell1 or leave by will1 to do with it whatsoever he chose4 ,it was cultivated for him by ,slaves to whom he owed nothing in return1 and whom it was simply his interest to keep alive and to continue breeding in order that they might perpetuate his wealth4 ,i concentrate particularly upon these ,slaves1 the great majority of the human beings inhabiting the land1 because1 although there arose in the ,dark ,ages1 when the ,roman ,empire was passing into the society of the ,middle ,ages1 other social elements within the ,villae--the ,freed men who owed the lord a modified service1 and even occasionally independent citizens present through a contract terminable and freely entered into yet it is the ,slave who is the mark of all that society4 ,at its origin1 then1 the ,roman ,villa was a piece of absolute property1 the production of wealth upon which was due to the application of slave labour to the natural resources of the place2 and that slave labour was as much the property of the lord as was the land itself4 ,the first modification which this arrangement showed in the new society which accompanied the growth and establishment of the ,church in the ,roman world1 was a sort of customary rule which modified the old arbitrary position of the ,slave4 ,the ,slave was still a ,slave1 but it was both more convenient in the decay of communications and public power1 and more consonant with the social spirit of the time to make sure of that ,slave's produce by asking him for no more than certain customary dues4 ,the ,slave and his descendants became more or less rooted to one spot4 ,some were still bought and sold1 but in decreasing numbers4 ,as the generations passed a larger and a larger proportion lived where and as their fathers had lived1 and the produce which they raised was fixed more and more at a certain amount1 which the lord was content to receive and ask no more4 ,the arrangement was made workable by leaving to the ,slave all the remaining produce of his own labour4 ,there was a sort of implied bargain here1 in the absence of public powers and in the decline of the old highly centralised and vigorous system which could always guarantee to the master the full product of the ,slave's effort4 ,the bargain implied was1 that if the ,slave ,community of the ,villa would produce for the benefit of its ,lord not less than a certain customary amount of goods from the soil of the ,villa1 the ,lord could count on their always exercising that effort by leaving to them all the surplus1 which they could increase1 if they willed1 indefinitely4 ,by the ninth century1 when this process had been gradually at work for a matter of some three hundred years1 one fixed form of productive unit began to be apparent throughout ,western ,christendom4 ,the old absolutely owned estate had come to be divided into three portions4 ,one of these was pasture and arable land1 reserved privately to the lord1 and called domain3 that is1 lord's land4 ,another was in the occupation1 and already almost in the possession 7practically1 though not legally71 of those who had once been ,slaves4 ,a third was common land over which both the ,lord and the ,slave exercised each their various rights1 which rights were minutely remembered and held sacred by custom4 ,for instance1 in a certain village1 if there was beech pasture for three hundred swine1 the lord might put in but fifty3 two hundred and fifty were the rights of the village4 ,upon the first of these portions1 ,domain1 wealth was produced by the obedience of the ,slave for certain fixed hours of labour4 ,he must come so many days a week1 or upon such and such occasions 7all fixed and customary71 to till the land of the ,domain for his ,lord1 and all the produce of this must be handed over to the ,lord though1 of course1 a daily wage in kind was allowed1 for the labourer must live4 ,upon the second portion1 ,land in ,villenage1 which was nearly always the most of the arable and pasture land of the ,villae1 the ,slaves worked by rules and customs which they gradually came to elaborate for themselves4 ,they worked under an officer of their own1 sometimes nominated1 sometimes elected3 nearly always1 in practice1 a man suitable to them and more or less of their choice2 though this co-operative work upon the old ,slave-ground was controlled by the general customs of the village1 common to lord and slave alike1 and the principal officer over both kinds of land was the ,lord's ,steward4 ,of the wealth so produced by the ,slaves1 a certain fixed portion 7estimated originally in kind7 was payable to the ,lord's ,bailiff1 and became the property of the ,lord4 ,finally1 on the third division of the land1 the ,waste1 the ,wood1 the ,heath1 and certain common pastures1 wealth was produced as elsewhere by the labour of those who had once been the ,slaves1 but divided in customary proportions between them and their master4 ,thus1 such and such a water meadow would have grazing for so many oxen2 the number was rigidly defined1 and of that number so many would be the ,lord's and so many the ,villagers'4 ,during the eighth1 ninth and tenth centuries this system crystallised and became so natural in men's eyes that the original servile character of the working folk upon the ,villa was forgotten4 ,the documents of the time are rare4 ,these three centuries are the crucible of ,europe1 and record is drowned and burnt in them4 ,our study of their social conditions1 especially in the latter part1 are matter rather of inference than of direct evidence4 ,but the sale and purchase of men1 already exceptional at the beginning of this period1 is almost unknown before the end of it4 ,apart from domestic slaves within the household1 slavery in the old sense which ,pagan antiquity gave that institution had been transformed out of all knowledge1 and when1 with the eleventh century1 the true ,middle ,ages begin to spring from the soil of the ,dark ,ages1 and a new civilisation to arise1 though the old word servus 7the ,latin for a slave7 is still used for the man who works the soil1 his status in the now increasing number of documents which we can consult is wholly changed2 we can certainly no longer translate the word by the ,english word slave2 we are compelled to translate it by a new word with very different connotations3 the word serf4 ,the ,serf of the early ,middle ,ages1 of the eleventh and early twelfth centuries1 of the ,crusades and the ,norman ,conquest1 is already nearly a peasant4 ,he is indeed bound in legal theory to the soil upon which he was born4 ,in social practice1 all that is required of him is that his family should till its quota of servile land1 and that the dues to the lord shall not fail from absence of labour4 ,that duty fulfilled1 it is easy and common for members of the serf-class to enter the professions and the ,church1 or to go wild2 to become men practically free in the growing industries of the towns4 ,with every passing generation the ancient servile conception of the labourer's status grows more and more dim1 and the ,courts and the practice of society treat him more and more as a man strictly bound to certain dues and to certain periodical labour within his industrial unit1 but in all other respects free4 ,as the civilisation of the ,middle ,ages develops1 as wealth increases and the arts progressively flourish1 this character of freedom becomes more marked4 ,in spite of attempts in time of scarcity 7as after a plague7 to insist upon the old rights to compulsory labour1 the habit of commuting these rights for money-payments and dues has grown too strong to be resisted4 ,if at the end of the fourteenth century1 let us say1 or at the beginning of the fifteenth1 you had visited some ,squire upon his estate in ,france or in ,england1 he would have told you of the whole of it1 ,these are my lands4 ,but the peasant 7as he now was7 would have said also of his holding1 ,this is my land4 ,he could not be evicted from it4 ,the dues which he was customarily bound to pay were but a fraction of its total produce4 ,he could not always sell it1 but it was always inheritable from father to son2 and1 in general1 at the close of this long process of a thousand years the ,slave had become a free man for all the ordinary purposes of society4 ,he bought and sold4 ,he saved as he willed1 he invested1 he built1 he drained at his discretion1 and if he improved the land it was to his own profit4 ,meanwhile1 side by side with this emancipation of mankind in the direct line of descent from the old chattel slaves of the ,roman villa went1 in the ,middle ,ages1 a crowd of institutions which all similarly made for a distribution of property1 and for the destruction of even the fossil remnants of a then forgotten ,servile ,state4 ,thus industry of every kind in the towns1 in transport1 in crafts1 and in commerce1 was organised in the form of ,guilds4 ,and a ,guild was a society partly co-operative1 but in the main composed of private owners of capital whose corporation was self-governing1 and was designed to check competition between its members3 to prevent the growth of one at the expense of the other4 ,above all1 most jealously did the ,guild safeguard the division of property1 so that there should be formed within its ranks no proletariat upon the one side1 and no monopolising capitalist upon the other4 ,there was a period of apprenticeship at a man's entry into a ,guild1 during which he worked for a master2 but in time he became a master in his turn4 ,the existence of such corporations as the normal units of industrial production1 of commercial effort1 and of the means of transport1 is proof enough of what the social spirit was which had also enfranchised the labourer upon the land4 ,and while such institutions flourished side by side with the no longer servile village communities1 freehold or absolute possession of the soil1 as distinguished from the tenure of the serf under the lord1 also increased4 ,these three forms under which labour was exercised the serf1 secure in his position1 and burdened only with regular dues1 which were but a fraction of his produce2 the freeholder1 a man independent save for money dues1 which were more of a tax than a rent2 the ,guild1 in which well-divided capital worked co-operatively for craft production1 for transport and for commerce--all three between them were making for a society which should be based upon the principle of property4 ,all1 or most1--the normal family--should own4 ,and on ownership the freedom of the ,state should repose4 ,the ,state1 as the minds of men envisaged it at the close of this process1 was an agglomeration of families of varying wealth1 but by far the greater number owners of the means of production4 ,it was an agglomeration in which the stability of this distributive system 7as ,i have called it7 was guaranteed by the existence of co-operative bodies1 binding men of the same craft or of the same village together2 guaranteeing the small proprietor against loss of his economic independence1 while at the same time it guaranteed society against the growth of a proletariat4 ,if liberty of purchase and of sale1 of mortgage and of inheritance was restricted1 it was restricted with the social object of preventing the growth of an economic oligarchy which could exploit the rest of the community4 ,the restraints upon liberty were restraints designed for the preservation of liberty2 and every action of ,mediaeval ,society1 from the flower of the ,middle ,ages to the approach of their catastrophe1 was directed towards the establishment of a ,state in which men should be economically free through the possession of capital and of land4 ,save here and there in legal formulae1 or in rare patches isolated and eccentric1 the ,servile ,institution had totally disappeared2 nor must it be imagined that anything in the nature of ,collectivism had replaced it4 ,there was common land1 but it was common land jealously guarded by men who were also personal proprietors of other land4 ,common property in the village was but one of the forms of property1 and was used rather as the fly-wheel to preserve the regularity of the co-operative machine than as a type of holding in any way peculiarly sacred4 ,the ,guilds had property in common1 but that property was the property necessary to their co-operative life1 their ,halls1 their ,funds for ,relief1 their ,religious ,endowments4 ,as for the instruments of their trades1 those instruments were owned by the individual members1 not by the guild1 save where they were of so expensive a kind as to necessitate a corporate control4 ,such was the transformation which had come over ,european society in the course of ten ,christian centuries4 ,slavery had gone1 and in its place had come that establishment of free possession which seemed so normal to men1 and so consonant to a happy human life4 ,no particular name was then found for it4 ,to-day1 and now that it has disappeared1 we must construct an awkward one1 and say that the ,middle ,ages had instinctively conceived and brought into existence the _/,distributive ,state_/4 ,that excellent consummation of human society passed1 as we know1 and was in certain ,provinces of ,europe1 but more particularly in ,britain1 destroyed4 ,for a society in which the determinant mass of families were owners of capital and of land2 for one in which production was regulated by self-governing corporations of small owners2 and for one in which the misery and insecurity of a proletariat was unknown1 there came to be substituted the dreadful moral anarchy against which all moral effort is now turned1 and which goes by the name of ,capitalism4 ,how did such a catastrophe come about8 ,why was it permitted1 and upon what historical process did the evil batten8 ,what turned an ,england economically free into the ,england which we know to-day1 of which at least one-third is indigent1 of which nineteen-twentieths are dispossessed of capital and of land1 and of which the whole industry and national life is controlled upon its economic side by a few chance directors of millions1 a few masters of unsocial and irresponsible monopolies8 ,the answer most usually given to this fundamental question in our history1 and the one most readily accepted1 is that this misfortune came about through a material process known as the ,industrial ,revolution4 ,the use of expensive machinery1 the concentration of industry and of its implements are imagined to have enslaved1 in some blind way1 apart from the human will1 the action of ,english mankind4 ,the explanation is wholly false4 ,no such material cause determined the degradation from which we suffer4 ,it was the deliberate action of men1 evil will in a few and apathy of will among the many1 which produced a catastrophe as human in its causes and inception as in its vile effect4 ,capitalism was not the growth of the industrial movement1 nor of chance material discoveries4 ,a little acquaintance with history and a little straightforwardness in the teaching of it would be enough to prove that4 ,the ,industrial ,system was a growth proceeding from ,capitalism1 not its cause4 ,capitalism was here in ,england before the ,industrial ,system came into being2--before the use of coal and of the new expensive machinery1 and of the concentration of the implements of production in the great towns4 ,had ,capitalism not been present before the ,industrial ,revolution1 that revolution might have proved as beneficent to ,englishmen as it has proved maleficent4 ,but ,capitalism--that is1 the ownership by a few of the springs of life--was present long before the great discoveries came4 ,it warped the effect of these discoveries and new inventions1 and it turned them from a good into an evil thing4 ,it was not machinery that lost us our freedom2 it was the loss of a free mind4 ,section ,four ,how the ,distributive ,state ,failed ,with the close of the middle ages the societies of ,western ,christendom and ,england among the rest were economically free4 ,property was an institution native to the ,state and enjoyed by the great mass of its citizens4 ,co-operative institutions1 voluntary regulations of labour1 restricted the completely independent use of property by its owners only in order to keep that institution intact and to prevent the absorption of small property by great4 ,this excellent state of affairs which we had reached after many centuries of ,christian development1 and in which the old institution of slavery had been finally eliminated from ,christendom1 did not everywhere survive4 ,in ,england in particular it was ruined4 ,the seeds of the disaster were sown in the sixteenth century4 ,its first apparent effects came to light in the seventeenth4 ,during the eighteenth century ,england came to be finally1 though insecurely1 established upon a proletarian basis1 that is1 it had already become a society of rich men possessed of the means of production on the one hand1 and a majority dispossessed of those means upon the other4 ,with the nineteenth century the evil plant had come to its maturity1 and ,england had become before the close of that period a purely ,capitalist ,state1 the type and model of ,capitalism for the whole world3 with the means of production tightly held by a very small group of citizens1 and the whole determining mass of the nation dispossessed of capital and land1 and dispossessed1 therefore1 in all cases of security1 and in many of sufficiency as well4 ,the mass of ,englishmen1 still possessed of political1 lacked more and more the elements of economic1 freedom1 and were in a worse posture than free citizens have ever found themselves before in the history of ,europe4 ,by what steps did so enormous a catastrophe fall upon us8 ,the first step in the process consisted in the mishandling of a great economic revolution which marked the sixteenth century4 ,the lands and the accumulated wealth of the monasteries were taken out of1 the hands of their old possessors with the intention of vesting them in the ,crown--but they passed1 as a fact1 not into the hands of the ,crown1 but into the hands of an already wealthy section of the community who1 after the change was complete1 became in the succeeding hundred years the governing power of ,england4 ,this is what happened3-- ,the ,england of the early sixteenth century1 the ,england over which ,henry ,,viii inherited his powerful ,crown in youth1 though it was an ,england in which the great mass of men owned the land they tilled and the houses in which they dwelt1 and the implements with which they worked1 was yet an ,england in which these goods1 though widely distributed1 were distributed unequally4 ,then1 as now1 the soil and its fixtures were the basis of all wealth1 but the proportion between the value of the soil and its fixtures and the value of other means of production 7implements1 stores of clothing and of subsistence1 etc47 was different from what it is now4 ,the land and the fixtures upon it formed a very much larger fraction of the totality of the means of production than they do to-day4 ,they represent to-day not one-half the total means of production of this country1 and though they are the necessary foundation for all wealth production1 yet our great machines1 our stores of food and clothing1 our coal and oil1 our ships and the rest of it1 come to more than the true value of the land and of the fixtures upon the land3 they come to more than the arable soil and the pasture1 the constructional value of the houses1 wharves and docks1 and so forth4 ,in the early sixteenth century the land and the fixtures upon it came1 upon the contrary1 to very much more than all other forms of wealth combined4 ,now this form of wealth was here1 more than in any other ,western ,european country1 already in the hands of a wealthy land-owning class at the end of the ,middle ,ages4 ,it is impossible to give exact statistics1 because none were gathered1 and we can only make general statements based upon inference and research4 ,but1 roughly speaking1 we may say that of the total value of the land and its fixtures1 probably rather more than a quarter1 though less than a third1 was in the hands of this wealthy class4 ,the ,england of that day was mainly agricultural1 and consisted of more than four1 but less than six million people1 and in every agricultural community you would have the ,lord1 as he was legally called 7the squire1 as he was already conversationally termed71 in possession of more demesne land than in any other country4 ,on the average you found him1 ,i say1 owning in this absolute fashion rather more than a quarter1 perhaps a third of the land of the village3 in the towns the distribution was more even4 ,sometimes it was a private individual who was in this position1 sometimes a corporation1 but in every village you would have found this demesne land absolutely owned by the political head of the village1 occupying a considerable proportion of its acreage4 ,the rest1 though distributed as property among the less fortunate of the population1 and carrying with it houses and implements from which they could not be dispossessed1 paid certain dues to the ,lord1 and1 what was more1 the ,lord exercised local justice4 ,this class of wealthy landowners had been also for now one hundred years the ,justices upon whom local administration depended4 ,there was no reason why this state of affairs should not gradually have led to the rise of the ,peasant and the decay of the ,lord4 ,that is what happened in ,france1 and it might perfectly well have happened here4 ,a peasantry eager to purchase might have gradually extended their holdings at the expense of the demesne land1 and to the distribution of property1 which was already fairly complete1 there might have been added another excellent element1 namely1 the more equal possession of that property4 ,but any such process of gradual buying by the small man from the great1 such as would seem natural to the temper of us ,european people1 and such as has since taken place nearly everywhere in countries which were left free to act upon their popular instincts1 was interrupted in this country by an artificial revolution of the most violent kind4 ,this artificial revolution consisted in the seizing of the monastic lands by the ,crown4 ,it is important to grasp clearly the nature of this operation1 for the whole economic future of ,england was to flow from it4 ,of the demesne lands1 and the power of local administration which they carried with them 7a very important feature1 as we shall see later71 rather more than a quarter were in the hands of the ,church2 the ,church was therefore the ,lord of something over #be per cent4 say #bh per cent4 or perhaps nearly #cj per cent4 of ,english agricultural communities1 and the overseers of a like proportion of all ,english agricultural produce4 ,the ,church was further the absolute owner in practice of something like #cj per cent4 of the demesne land in the villages1 and the receiver of something like #cj per cent4 of the customary dues1 etc41 paid by the smaller owners to the greater4 ,all this economic power lay until #aece in the hands of ,cathedral ,chapters1 communities of monks and nuns1 educational establishments conducted by the clergy1 and so forth4 ,when the ,monastic lands were confiscated by ,henry ,,viii1 not the whole of this vast economic influence was suddenly extinguished4 ,the secular clergy remained endowed1 and most of the educational establishments1 though looted1 retained some revenue2 but though the whole #cj per cent4 did not suffer confiscation1 something well over #bj per cent4 did1 and the revolution effected by this vast operation was by far the most complete1 the most sudden1 and the most momentous of any that has taken place in the economic history of any ,european people4 ,it was at first intended to retain this great mass of the means of production in the hands of the ,crown3 that must be clearly remembered by any student of the fortunes of ,england1 and by all who marvel at the contrast between the old ,england and the new4 ,had that intention been firmly maintained1 the ,english ,state and its government would have been the most powerful in ,europe4 ,the ,executive 7which in those days meant the ,king7 would have had a greater opportunity for crushing the resistance of the wealthy1 for backing its political power with economic power1 and for ordering the social life of its subjects than any other executive in ,christendom4 ,had ,henry ,,viii and his successors kept the land thus confiscated1 the power of the ,french ,monarchy1 at which we are astonished1 would have been nothing to the power of the ,english4 ,the ,king of ,england would have had in his own hands an instrument of control of the most absolute sort4 ,he would presumably have used it1 as a strong central government always does1 for the weakening of the wealthier classes1 and to the indirect advantage of the mass of the people4 ,at any rate1 it would have been a very different ,england indeed from the ,england we know1 if the ,king had held fast to his own after the dissolution of the monasteries4 ,now it is precisely here that the capital point in this great revolution appears4 ,the ,king failed to keep the lands he had seized4 ,that class of large landowners which already existed and controlled1 as ,i have said1 anything from a quarter to a third of the agricultural values of ,england1 were too strong for the monarchy4 ,they insisted upon land being granted to themselves1 sometimes freely1 sometimes for ridiculously small sums1 and they were strong enough in ,parliament1 and through the local administrative power they had1 to see that their demands were satisfied4 ,nothing that the ,crown let go ever went back to the ,crown1 and year after year more and more of what had once been the monastic land became the absolute possession of the large landowners4 ,observe the effect of this4 ,all over ,england men who already held in virtually absolute property from one-quarter to one-third of the soil and the ploughs and the barns of a village1 became possessed in a very few years of a further great section of the means of production1 which turned the scale wholly in their favour4 ,they added to that third a new and extra fifth4 ,they became at a blow the owners of half the land6 ,in many centres of capital importance they had come to own more than half the land4 ,they were in many districts not only the unquestioned superiors1 but the economic masters of the rest of the community4 ,they could buy to the greatest advantage4 ,they were strictly competitive1 getting every shilling of due and of rent where the old clerical landlords had been customary--leaving much to the tenant4 ,they began to fill the universities1 the judiciary4 ,the ,crown less and less decided between great and small4 ,more and more the great could decide in their own favour4 ,they soon possessed by these operations the bulk of the means of production1 and they immediately began the process of eating up the small independent men and gradually forming those great estates which1 in the course of a few generations1 became identical with the village itself4 ,all over ,england you may notice that the great squires' houses date from this revolution or after it4 ,the manorial house1 the house of the local great man as it was in the ,middle ,ages1 survives here and there to show of what immense effect this revolution was4 ,the low-timbered place with its steadings and outbuildings1 only a larger farmhouse among the other farmhouses1 is turned after the ,reformation and thenceforward into a palace4 ,save where great castles 7which were only held of the ,crown and not owned7 made an exception1 the pre-,reformation gentry lived as men richer than1 but not the masters of1 other farmers around them4 ,after the ,reformation there began to arise all over ,england those great country houses which rapidly became the typical centres of ,english agricultural life4 ,the process was in full swing before ,henry died4 ,unfortunately for ,england1 he left as his heir a sickly child1 during the six years of whose reign1 from #aedg to #aeec1 the loot went on at an appalling rate4 ,when he died and ,mary came to the throne it was nearly completed4 ,a mass of new families had arisen1 wealthy out of all proportion to anything which the older ,england had known1 and bound by a common interest to the older families which had joined in the grab4 ,every single man who sat in ,parliament for a country required his price for voting the dissolution of the monasteries2 every single man received it4 ,a list of the members of the ,dissolution ,parliament is enough to prove this1 and1 apart from their power in ,parliament1 this class had a hundred other ways of insisting on their will4 ,the ,howards 7already of some lineage71 the ,cavendishes1 the ,cecils1 the ,russels1 and fifty other new families thus rose upon the ruins of religion2 and the process went steadily on until1 about one hundred years after its inception1 the whole face of ,england was changed4 ,in the place of a powerful ,crown disposing of revenues far greater than that of any subject1 you had a ,crown at its wit's end for money1 and dominated by subjects some of whom were its equals in wealth1 and who could1 especially through the action of ,parliament 7which they now controlled71 do much what they willed with ,government4 ,in other words1 by the first third of the seventeenth century1 by #afcj--dj1 the economic revolution was finally accomplished1 and the new economic reality thrusting itself upon the old traditions of ,england was a powerful oligarchy of large owners overshadowing an impoverished and dwindled monarchy4 ,other causes had contributed to this deplorable result4 ,the change in the value of money had hit the ,crown very hard2#b the peculiar history of the ,tudor family1 their violent passions1 their lack of resolution and of any continuous policy1 to some extent the character of ,charles ,i himself1 and many another subsidiary cause may be quoted4 ,but the great main fact upon which the whole thing is dependent is the fact that the ,monastic ,lands1 at least a fifth of the wealth of the country1 had been transferred to the great landowners1 and that this transference had tipped the scale over entirely in their favour as against the peasantry4 ,the diminished and impoverished ,crown could no longer stand4 ,it fought against the new wealth1 the struggle of the ,civil ,wars2 it was utterly defeated2 and when a final settlement was arrived at in #affj1 you have all the realities of power in the hands of a small powerful class of wealthy men1 the ,king still surrounded by the forms and traditions of his old power1 but in practice a salaried puppet4 ,and in that economic world which underlies all political appearances1 the great dominating note was that a few wealthy families had got hold of the bulk of the means of production in ,england1 while the same families exercised all local administrative power and were moreover the ,judges1 the ,higher ,education1 the ,church1 and the generals4 ,they quite overshadowed what was left of central government in this country4 ,take1 as a starting-point for what followed1 the date #agjj4 ,by that time more than half of the ,english were dispossessed of capital and of land4 ,not one man in two1 even if you reckon the very small owners1 inhabited a house of which he was the secure possessor1 or tilled land from which he could not be turned off4 ,such a proportion may seem to us to-day a wonderfully free arrangement1 and certainly if nearly one-half of our population were possessed of the means of production1 we should be in a very different situation from that in which we find ourselves4 ,but the point to seize is that1 though the bad business was very far from completion in or about the year #agjj1 yet by that date ,england had already become _/,capitalist_/4 ,she had already permitted a vast section of her population to become proletarian1 and it is this and not the so-called ,industrial ,revolution1 a later thing1 which accounts for the terrible social condition in which we find ourselves to-day4 ,how true this is what ,i still have to say in this section will prove4 ,in an ,england thus already cursed with a very large proletariat class1 and in an ,england already directed by a dominating ,capitalist class1 possessing the means of production1 there came a great industrial development4 ,had that industrial development come upon a people economically free1 it would have taken a co-operative form4 ,coming as it did upon a people which had already largely lost its economic freedom1 it took at its very origin a ,capitalist form1 and this form it has retained1 expanded1 and perfected throughout two hundred years4 ,it was in ,england that the ,industrial ,system arose4 ,it was in ,england that all its traditions and habits were formed2 and because the ,england in which it arose was already a ,capitalist ,england1 modern ,industrialism1 wherever you see it at work to-day1 having spread from ,england1 has proceeded upon the ,capitalist model4 ,it was in #agje that the first practical steam-engine1 ,newcomen's1 was set to work4 ,the life of a man elapsed before this invention was made1 by ,watt's introduction of the condenser1 into the great instrument of production which has transformed our industry--but in those sixty years all the origins of the ,industrial ,system are to be discovered4 ,it was just before ,watt's patent that ,hargreaves' spinning-jenny appeared4 ,thirty years earlier1 ,abraham ,darby of ,colebrook ,dale1 at the end of a long series of experiments which had covered more than a century1 smelted iron-ore successfully with coke4 ,not twenty years later1 ,king introduced the flying shuttle1 the first great improvement in the hand-loom2 and in general the period covered by such a life as that of ,dr ,johnson1 born just after ,newcomen's engine was first set working1 and dying seventy-four years afterwards1 when the ,industrial ,system was in full blast1 covers that great transformation of ,england4 ,a man who1 as a child1 could remember the last years of ,queen ,anne1 and who lived to the eve of the ,french ,revolution1 saw passing before his eyes the change which transformed ,english society and has led it to the expansion and peril in which we see it to-day4 ,what was the characteristic mark of that half-century and more8 ,why did the new inventions give us the form of society now known and hated under the name of ,industrial8 ,why did the vast increase in the powers of production1 in population and in accumulation of wealth1 turn the mass of ,englishmen into a poverty-stricken proletariat1 cut off the rich from the rest of the nation1 and develop to the full all the evils which we associate with the ,capitalist ,state8 ,to that question an answer almost as universal as it is unintelligent has been given4 ,that answer is not only unintelligent but false1 and it will be my business here to show how false it is4 ,the answer so provided in innumerable textbooks1 and taken almost as commonplace in our universities1 is that the new methods of production--the new machinery1 the new implements--fatally and of themselves developed a ,capitalist ,state in which a few should own the means of production and the mass should be proletariat4 ,the new instruments1 it is pointed out1 were on so vastly greater a scale than the old1 and were so much more expensive1 that the small man could not afford them2 while the rich man1 who could afford them1 ate up by his competition1 and reduced from the position of a small owner to that of a wage-earner1 his insufficiently equipped competitor who still attempted to struggle on with the older and cheaper tools4 ,to this 7we are told7 the advantages of concentration were added in favour of the large owner against the small4 ,not only were the new instruments expensive almost in proportion to their efficiency1 but1 especially after the introduction of steam1 they were efficient in proportion to their concentration in few places and under the direction of a few men4 ,under the effect of such false arguments as these we have been taught to believe that the horrors of the ,industrial ,system were a blind and necessary product of material and impersonal forces1 and that wherever the steam engine1 the power loom1 the blast furnace and the rest were introduced1 there fatally would soon appear a little group of owners exploiting a vast majority of the dispossessed4 ,it is astonishing that a statement so unhistorical should have gained so general a credence4 ,indeed1 were the main truths of ,english history taught in our schools and universities to-day1 were educated men familiar with the determining and major facts of the national past1 such follies could never have taken root4 ,the vast growth of the proletariat1 the concentration of ownership into the hands of a few owners1 and the exploitation by those owners of the mass of the community1 had no fatal or necessary connection with the discovery of new and perpetually improving methods of production4 ,the evil proceeded indirect historical sequence1 proceeded patently and demonstrably1 from the fact that ,england1 the seed-plot of the ,industrial ,system1 was already captured by a wealthy oligarchy before the series of great discoveries began4 ,consider in what way the ,industrial ,system developed upon ,capitalist lines4 ,why were a few rich men put with such ease into possession of the new methods8 ,why was it normal and natural in their eyes and in that of contemporary society that those who produced the new wealth with the new machinery should be proletarian and dispossessed8 ,simply because the ,england upon which the new discoveries had come was already an ,england owned as to its soil and accumulations of wealth by a small minority3 it was already an ,england in which perhaps half of the whole population was proletarian1 and a medium for exploitation ready to hand4 ,when any one of the new industries was launched it had to be capitalised2 that is1 accumulated wealth from some source or other had to be found which would support labour in the process of production until that process should be complete4 ,someone must find the corn and the meat and the housing and the clothing by which should be supported1 between the extraction of the raw material and the moment when the consumption of the finished article could begin1 the human agents which dealt with that raw material and turned it into the finished product4 ,had property been well distributed1 protected by co-operative guilds fenced round and supported by custom and by the autonomy of great artisan corporations1 those accumulations of wealth1 necessary for the launching of each new method of production and for each new perfection of it1 would have been discovered in the mass of small owners4 ,their corporations1 their little parcels of wealth combined would have furnished the capitalisation required for the new processes1 and men already owners would1 as one invention succeeded another1 have increased the total wealth of the community without disturbing the balance of distribution4 ,there is no conceivable link in reason or in experience which binds the capitalisation of a new process with the idea of a few employing owners and a mass of employed non-owners working at a wage4 ,such great discoveries coming in a society like that of the thirteenth century would have blest and enriched mankind4 ,coming upon the diseased moral conditions of the eighteenth century in this country1 they proved a curse4 ,to whom could the new industry turn for capitalisation8 ,the small owner had already largely disappeared4 ,the corporate life and mutual obligations which had supported him and confirmed him in his property had been broken to pieces by no economic development1 but by the deliberate action of the rich4 ,he was ignorant because his schools had been taken from him and the universities closed to him4 ,he was the more ignorant because the common life which once nourished his social sense and the co-operative arrangements which had once been his defence had disappeared4 ,when you sought an accumulation of corn1 of clothing1 of housing1 of fuel as the indispensable preliminary to the launching of your new industry2 when you looked round for someone who could find the accumulated wealth necessary for these considerable experiments1 you had to turn to the class which had already monopolised the bulk of the means of production in ,england4 ,the rich men alone could furnish you with those supplies4 ,nor was this all4 ,the supplies once found and the adventure capitalised1 that form of human energy which lay best to hand1 which was indefinitely exploitable1 weak1 ignorant1 and desperately necessitous1 ready to produce for you upon almost any terms1 and glad enough if you would only keep it alive1 was the existing proletariat which the new plutocracy had created when1 in cornering the wealth of the country after the ,reformation1 they had thrust out the mass of ,englishmen from the possession of implements1 of houses1 and of land4 ,the rich class1 adopting some new process of production for its private gain1 worked it upon those lines of mere competition which its avarice had already established4 ,co-operative tradition was dead4 ,where would it find its cheapest labour8 ,obviously among the proletariat--not among the remaining small owners4 ,what class would increase under the new wealth8 ,obviously the proletariat again1 without responsibilities1 with nothing to leave to its progeny2 and as they swelled the capitalist's gain1 they enabled him with increasing power to buy out the small owner and send him to swell by another tributary the proletarian mass4 ,it was upon this account that the ,industrial ,revolution1 as it is called1 took in its very origins the form which has made it an almost unmixed curse for the unhappy society in which it has flourished4 ,the rich1 already possessed of the accumulations by which that industrial change could alone be nourished1 inherited all its succeeding accumulations of implements and all its increasing accumulations of subsistence4 ,the factory system1 starting upon a basis of capitalist and proletariat1 grew in the mould which had determined its origins4 ,with every new advance the capitalist looked for proletariat grist to feed the productive mill4 ,every circumstance of that society1 the form in which the laws that governed ownership and profit were cast1 the obligations of partners1 the relations bet ween master and man1 directly made for the indefinite expansion of a subject1 formless1 wage-earning class controlled by a small body of owners1 which body would tend to become smaller and richer still1 and to be possessed of power ever greater and greater as the bad business unfolded4 ,the spread of economic oligarchy was everywhere1 and not in industry alone4 ,the great landlords destroyed deliberately and of set purpose and to their own ad vantage the common rights over common land4 ,the small plutocracy with which they were knit up1 and with whose mercantile elements they were now fused1 directed everything to its own ends4 ,that strong central government which should protect the community against the rapacity of a few had gone generations before4 ,capitalism triumphant wielded all the mechanism of legislation and of information too4 ,it still holds them2 and there is not an example of so-called ,social ,reform to-day which is not demonstrably 7though often subconsciously7 directed to the further entrenchment and confirmation of an industrial society in which it is taken for granted that a few shall own1 that the vast majority shall live at a wage under them1 and that all the bulk of ,englishmen may hope for is the amelioration of their lot by regulations and by control from above--but not by property2 not by freedom4 ,we all feel--and those few of us who have analysed the matter not only feel but know--that the ,capitalist society thus gradually developed from its origins in the capture of the land four hundred years ago has reached its term4 ,it is almost self-evident that it cannot continue in the form which now three generations have known1 and it is equally self-evident that some solution must be found for the intolerable and increasing instability with which it has poisoned our lives4 ,but before considering the solutions variously presented by various schools of thought1 ,i shall in my next section show how and why the ,english ,capitalist ,industrial ,system is thus intolerably unstable and consequently presents an acute problem which must be solved under pain of social death4 99 99 99 99 99 ,it must be noted that modern ,industrialism has spread to many other centres from ,england4 ,it bears everywhere the features stamped upon it by its origin in this country4 ,section ,five ,the ,capitalist ,state in ,proportion as ,it ,grows ,perfect ,grows ,unstable ,from the historical digression which ,i have introduced by way of illustrating my subject in the last two sections ,i now return to the general discussion of my thesis and to the logical process by which it may be established4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the ,capitalist ,state is unstable1 and indeed more properly a transitory phase lying between two permanent and stable states of society4 ,in order to appreciate why this is so1 let us recall the definition of the ,capitalist ,state3-- ,a society in which the ownership of the means of production is confined to a body of free citizens1 not large enough to make up properly a general character of that society1 while the rest are dispossessed of the means of production1 and are therefore proletarian1 we call ,capitalist4 ,note the several points of such a state of affairs4 ,you have private ownership2 but it is not private ownership distributed in many hands and thus familiar as an institution to society as a whole4 ,again1 you have the great majority dispossessed but at the same time citizens1 that is1 men politically free to act1 though economically impotent2 again1 though it is but an inference from our definition1 it is a necessary inference that there will be under ,capitalism a conscious1 direct1 and planned exploitation of the majority1 the free citizens who do not own by the minority who are owners4 ,for wealth must be produced3 the whole of that community must live3 and the possessors can make such terms with the non-possessors as shall make it certain that a portion of what the non-possessors have produced shall go to the possessors4 ,a society thus constituted cannot endure4 ,it cannot endure because it is subject to two very severe strains3 strains which increase in severity in proportion as that society becomes more thoroughly ,capitalist4 ,the first of these strains arises from the divergence between the moral theories upon which the ,state reposes and the social facts which those moral theories attempt to govern4 ,the second strain arises from the insecurity to which ,capitalism condemns the great mass of society1 and the general character of anxiety and peril which it imposes upon all citizens1 but in particular upon the majority1 which consists1 under ,capitalism1 of dispossessed free men4 ,of these two strains it is impossible to say which is the gravest4 ,either would be enough to destroy a social arrangement in which it was long present4 ,the two combined make that destruction certain2 and there is no longer any doubt that ,capitalist society must transform itself into some other and more stable arrangement4 ,it is the object of these pages to discover what that stable arrangement will probably be4 99 99 99 99 99 ,we say that there is a moral strain already intolerably severe and growing more severe with every perfection of ,capitalism4 ,this moral strain comes from a contradiction between the realities of ,capitalist and the moral base of our laws and traditions4 ,the moral base upon which our laws are still administered and our conventions raised presupposes a state composed of free citizens4 ,our laws defend property as a normal institution with which all citizens are acquainted1 and which all citizens respect4 ,it punishes theft as an abnormal incident only occurring when1 through evil motives1 one free citizen acquires the property of another without his knowledge and against his will4 ,it punishes fraud as another abnormal incident in which1 from evil motives1 one free citizen induces another to part with his property upon false representations4 ,it enforces contract1 the sole moral base of which is the freedom of the two contracting parties1 and the power of either1 if it so please him1 not to enter into a contract which1 once entered into1 must be enforced4 ,it gives to an owner the power to leave his property by will1 under the conception that such ownership and such passage of property 7to natural heirs as a rule1 but exceptionally to any other whom the testator may point out7 is the normal operation of a society generally familiar with such things1 and finding them part of the domestic life lived by the mass of its citizens4 ,it casts one citizen in damages if by any wilful action he has caused loss to another--for it presupposes him able to pay4 ,the sanction upon which social life reposes is1 in our moral theory1 the legal punishment enforceable in our ,courts1 and the basis presupposed for the security and material happiness of our citizens is the possession of goods which shall guarantee us from anxiety and permit us an independence of action in the midst of our fellowmen4 ,now contrast all this1 the moral theory upon which society is still perilously conducted1 the moral theory to which ,capitalism itself turns for succour when it is attacked1 contrast1 ,i say1 its formulae and its presuppositions with the social reality of a ,capitalist ,state such as is ,england to-day4 ,property remains as an instinct perhaps with most of the citizens2 as an experience and a reality it is unknown to nineteen out of twenty4 ,one hundred forms of fraud1 the necessary corollary of unrestrained competition between a few and of unrestrained avarice as the motive controlling production1 are not or cannot be punished3 petty forms of violence in theft and of cunning in fraud the laws can deal with1 but they cannot deal with these alone4 ,our legal machinery has become little more than an engine for protecting the few owners against the necessities1 the demands1 or the hatred of the mass of their dispossessed fellow-citizens4 ,the vast bulk of so-called free contracts are to-day leonine contracts3 arrangements which one man was free to take or to leave1 but which the other man was not free to take or to leave1 because the second had for his alternative starvation4 ,most important of all1 the fundamental social fact of our movement1 far more important than any security afforded by law1 or than any machinery which the ,state can put into action1 is the fact that livelihood is at the will of the possessors4 ,it can be granted by the possessors to the non-possessors1 or it can be withheld4 ,the real sanction in our society for the arrangements by which it is conducted is not punishment enforceable by the ,courts1 but the withholding of livelihood from the dispossessed by the possessors4 ,most men now fear the loss of employment more than they fear legal punishment1 and the discipline under which men are coerced in their modern forms of activity in ,england is the fear of dismissal4 ,the true master of the ,englishman to-day is not the ,sovereign nor the officers of ,state1 nor1 save indirectly1 the laws2 his true master is the ,capitalist4 ,of these main truths everyone is aware2 and anyone who sets out to deny them does so to-day at the peril of his reputation either for honesty or for intelligence4 ,if it be asked why things have come to a head so late 7,capitalism having been in growth for so long71 the answer is that ,england1 even now the most completely ,capitalist ,state of the modern world1 did not itself become a completely ,capitalist ,state until the present generation4 ,within the memory of men now living half ,england was agricultural1 with relations domestic rather than competitive between the various human factors to production4 ,this moral strain1 therefore1 arising from the divergence between what our laws and moral phrases pretend1 and what our society actually is1 makes of that society an utterly unstable thing4 ,this spiritual thesis is of far greater gravity than the narrow materialism of a generation now passing might imagine4 ,spiritual conflict is more fruitful of instability in the ,state than conflict of any other kind1 and there is acute spiritual conflict1 conflict in every man's conscience and ill-ease throughout the commonwealth when the realities of society are divorced from the moral base of its institution4 ,the second strain which we have noted in ,capitalism1 its second element of instability1 consists in the fact that ,capitalism destroys security4 99 99 99 99 99 ,experience is enough to save us any delay upon this main point of our matter4 ,but even without experience we could reason with absolute certitude from the very nature of ,capitalism that its chief effect would be the destruction of security in human life4 ,combine these two elements3 the ownership of the means of production by a very few2 the political freedom of owners and non-owners alike4 ,there follows immediately from that combination a competitive market wherein the labour of the non-owner fetches just what it is worth1 not as full productive power1 but as productive power which will leave a surplus to the ,capitalist4 ,it fetches nothing when the labourer cannot work1 more in proportion to the pace at which he is driven2 less in middle age than in youth2 less in old age than in middle age2 nothing in sickness2 nothing in despair4 ,a man in a position to accumulate 7the normal result of human labour71 a man founded upon property in sufficient amount and in established form is no more productive in his non-productive moments than is a proletarian2 but his life is balanced and regulated by his reception of rent and interest as well as wages4 ,surplus values come to him1 and are the fly-wheel balancing the extremes of his life and carrying him over his bad times4 ,with a proletarian it cannot be so4 ,the aspect from ,capital looks at a human being whose labour it proposes to purchase cuts right across that normal aspect of human life from which we all regard our own affections1 duties1 and character4 ,a man thinks of himself1 of his chances and of his security along the line of his own individual existence from birth to death4 ,capital purchasing his labour 7and not the man himself7 purchases but a cross-section of his life1 his moments of activity4 ,for the rest1 he must fend for himself2 but to fend for yourself when you have nothing is to starve4 ,as a matter of fact1 where a few possess the means of production perfectly free political conditions are impossible4 ,a perfect ,capitalist ,state cannot exist1 though we have come nearer to it in modern ,england than other and more fortunate nations had thought possible4 ,in the perfect ,capitalist ,state there would be no food available for the non-owner save when he was actually engaged in ,production1 and that absurdity would1 by quickly ending all human lives save those of the owners1 put a term to the arrangement4 ,if you left men completely free under a ,capitalist system1 there would be so heavy a mortality from starvation as would dry up the sources of labour in a very short time4 ,imagine the dispossessed to be ideally perfect cowards1 the possessors to consider nothing whatsoever except the buying of their labour in the cheapest market--and the system would break down from the death of children and of out-o'-works and of women4 ,you would not have a ,state in mere decline such as ours is4 ,you would have a ,state manifestly and patently perishing4 ,as a fact1 of course1 ,capitalism cannot proceed to its own logical extreme4 ,so long as the political freedom of all citizens is granted the freedom of the few possessors of food to grant or withhold it1 of the many non-possessors to strike any bargain at all1 lest they lack it3 to exercise such freedom fully is to starve the very young1 the old1 the impotent1 and the despairing to death4 ,capitalism must keep alive1 by non ,capitalist methods1 great masses of the population who would otherwise starve to death2 and that is what ,capitalism was careful to do to an increasing extent as it got a stronger and a stronger grip upon the ,english people4 ,elizabeth's ,poor ,law at the beginning of the business1 the ,poor ,law of #ahcd1 coming at a moment when nearly half ,england had passed into the grip of ,capitalism1 are original and primitive instances3 there are to-day a hundred others4 ,though this cause of insecurity--the fact that the possessors have no direct incentive to keep men alive--is logically the most obvious1 and always the most enduring under a ,capitalist system1 there is another cause more poignant in its effect upon human life4 ,that other cause is the competitive anarchy in production which restricted ownership coupled with freedom involves4 ,consider what is involved by the very process of production where the implements and the soil are in the hands of a few whose motive for causing the proletariat to produce is not the use of the wealth created but the enjoyment by those possessors of surplus value or profit4 99 99 99 99 99 ,if full political freedom be allowed to any two such possessors of implements and stores1 each will actively watch his market1 attempt to undersell the other1 tend to overproduce at the end of some season of extra demand for his article1 thus glut the market only to suffer a period of depression afterwards--and so forth4 ,again1 the ,capitalist1 free1 individual director of production1 will miscalculate2 sometimes he will fail1 and his works will be shut down4 ,again1 a mass of isolated1 imperfectly instructed competing units cannot but direct their clashing efforts at an enormous waste1 and that waste will fluctuate4 ,most commissions1 most advertisements1 most parades1 are examples of this waste4 ,if this waste of effort could be made a constant1 the parasitical employment it afforded would be a constant too4 ,but of its nature it is a most inconstant thing1 and the employment it affords is therefore necessarily precarious4 ,the concrete translation of this is the insecurity of the commercial traveller1 the advertising agent1 the insurance agent1 and every form of touting and cozening which competitive ,capitalism carries with it4 ,now here again1 as in the case of the insecurity produced by age and sickness1 ,capitalism cannot be pursued to its logical conclusion1 and it is the element of freedom which suffers4 ,competition is1 as a fact1 restricted to an increasing extent by an understanding between the competitors1 accompanied1 especially in this country1 by the ruin of the smaller competitor through secret conspiracies entered into by the larger men1 and supported by the secret political forces of the ,state4#c ,in a word1 ,capitalism1 proving almost as unstable to the owners as to the non-owners1 is tending towards stability by losing its essential character of political freedom4 ,no better proof of the instability of ,capitalism as a system could be desired4 ,take any one of the numerous ,trusts which now control ,english industry1 and have made of modern ,england the type1 quoted throughout the ,continent1 of artificial monopolies4 ,if the full formula of ,capitalism were accepted by our ,courts and our executive statesmen1 anyone could start a rival business1 undersell those ,trusts and shatter the comparative security they afford to industry within their field4 ,the reason that no one does this is that political freedom is not1 as a fact1 protected here by the ,courts in commercial affairs4 ,a man attempting to compete with one of our great ,english ,trusts would find himself at once undersold4 ,he might1 by all the spirit of ,european law for centuries1 indict those who would ruin him1 citing them for a conspiracy in restraint of trade2 of this conspiracy he would find the judge and the politicians most heartily in support4 ,but it must always be remembered that these conspiracies in restraint of trade which are the mark of modern ,england are in themselves a mark of the transition from the true ,capitalist phase to another4 ,under the essential conditions of ,capitalism--under a perfect political freedom--such conspiracies would be punished by the ,courts for what they are3 to wit1 a contravention of the fundamental doctrine of political liberty4 ,for this doctrine1 while it gives any man the right to make any contract he chooses with any labourer and offer the produce at such prices as he sees fit1 also involves the protection of that liberty by the punishment of any conspiracy that may have monopoly for its object4 ,if such perfect freedom is no longer attempted1 if monopolies are permitted and fostered1 it is because the unnatural strain to which freedom1 coupled with restricted ownership1 gives rise1 the insecurity of its mere competition1 the anarchy of its productive methods have at last proved intolerable4 ,i have already delayed more than was necessary in this section upon the causes which render a ,capitalist ,state essentially unstable4 ,i might have treated the matter empirically1 taking for granted the observation which all my readers must have made1 that ,capitalism is as a fact doomed1 and that the ,capitalist ,state has already passed into its first phase of transition4 ,we are clearly no longer possessed of that absolutely political freedom which true ,capitalism essentially demands4 ,the insecurity involved1 coupled with the divorce between our traditional morals and the facts of society1 have already introduced such novel features as the permission of conspiracy among both possessors and non-possessors1 the compulsory provision of security through ,state action1 and all these reforms1 implicit or explicit1 the tendency of which ,i am about to examine4 ,section ,six ,the ,stable ,solutions of ,this ,instability ,given a capitalist state1 of its nature unstable1 it will tend to reach stability by some method or another4 ,it is the definition of unstable equilibrium that a body in unstable equilibrium is seeking a stable equilibrium4 ,for instance1 a pyramid balanced upon its apex is in unstable equilibrium2 which simply means that a slight force one way or the other will make it fall into a position where it will repose4 ,similarly1 certain chemical mixtures are said to be in unstable equilibrium when their constituent parts have such affinity one for another that a slight shock may make them combine and transform the chemical arrangement of the whole4 ,of this sort are explosives4 ,if the ,capitalist ,state is in unstable equilibrium1 this only means that it is seeking a stable equilibrium1 and that ,capitalism cannot but be transformed into some other arrangement wherein ,society may repose4 ,there are but three social arrangements which can replace ,capitalism3 ,slavery1 ,socialism1 and ,property4 ,i may imagine a mixture of any two of these three or of all the three1 but each is a dominant type1 and from the very nature of the problem no fourth arrangement can be devised4 ,the problem turns1 remember1 upon the control of the means of production4 ,capitalism means that this control is vested in the hands of few1 while political freedom is the appanage of all4 ,if this anomaly cannot endure1 from its insecurity and from its own contradiction with its presumed moral basis1 you must either have a transformation of the one or of the other of the two elements which combined have been found unworkable4 ,these two factors are 7#a7 ,the ownership of the means of ,production by a few2 7#b7 ,the ,freedom of all4 ,to solve ,capitalism you must get rid of restricted ownership1 or of freedom1 or of both4 ,now there is only one alternative to freedom1 which is the negation of it4 ,either a man is free to work and not to work as he pleases1 or he may be liable to a legal compulsion to work1 backed by the forces of the ,state4 ,in the first he is a free man2 in the second he is by definition a slave4 ,we have1 therefore1 so far as this factor of freedom is concerned1 no choice between a number of changes1 but only the opportunity of one1 to wit1 the establishment of slavery in place of freedom4 ,such a solution1 the direct1 immediate1 and conscious re-establishment of slavery1 would provide a true solution of the problems which ,capitalism offers4 ,it would guarantee1 under workable regulations1 sufficiency and security for the dispossessed4 ,such a solution1 as ,i shall show1 is the probable goal which our society will in fact approach4 ,to its immediate and conscious acceptance1 however1 there is an obstacle4 ,a direct and conscious establishment of slavery as a solution to the problem of ,capitalism1 the surviving ,christian tradition of our civilisation compels men to reject4 ,no reformer will advocate it2 no prophet dares take it as yet for granted4 ,all theories of a reformed society will therefore attempt1 at first1 to leave untouched the factor of ,freedom among the elements which make up ,capitalism1 and will concern themselves with some change in the factor of ,property4#d ,now1 in attempting to remedy the evils of ,capitalism by remedying that one of its two factors which consists in an ill distribution of property1 you have two1 and only two1 courses open to you4 ,if you are suffering because property is restricted to a few1 you can alter that factor in the problem either by putting property into the hands of many1 or by putting it into the hands of none4 ,there is no third course4 ,in the concrete1 to put property in the hands of none means to vest it as a trust in the hands of political officers4 ,if you say that the evils proceeding from ,capitalism are due to the institution of property itself1 and not to the dispossession of the many by the few1 then you must forbid the private possession of the means of production by any particular and private part of the community3 but someone must control the means of production1 or we should have nothing to eat4 ,so in practice this doctrine means the management of the means of production by those who are the public officers of the community4 ,whether these public officers are themselves controlled by the community or no has nothing to do with this solution on its economic side4 ,the essential point to grasp is that the only alternative to private property is public property4 ,somebody must see to the ploughing and must control the ploughs2 otherwise no ploughing will be done4 ,it is equally obvious that if you conclude property in itself to be no evil but only the small number of its owners1 then your remedy is to increase the number of those owners4 ,so much being grasped1 we may recapitulate and say that a society like ours1 disliking the name of slavery1 and avoiding a direct and conscious re-establishment of the slave status1 will necessarily contemplate the reform of its ill-distributed ownership on one of two models4 ,the first is the negation of private property and the establishment of what is called ,collectivism3 that is1 the management of the means of production by the political officers of the community4 ,the second is the wider distribution of property until that institution shall become the mark of the whole ,state1 and until free citizens are normally found to be possessors of capital or land1 or both4 ,the first model we call ,socialism or the ,collectivist ,state2 the second we call the ,proprietary or ,distributive ,state4 ,with so much elucidated1 ,i will proceed to show in my next section why the second model1 involving the redistribution of property1 is rejected as impracticable by our existing ,capitalist ,society1 and why1 therefore1 the model chosen by reformers is the first model1 that of a ,collectivist ,state4 ,i shall then proceed to show that at its first inception all ,collectivist ,reform is necessarily deflected and evolves1 in the place of what it had intended1 a new thing3 a society wherein the owners remain few and wherein the proletarian mass accepts security at the expense of servitude4 99 99 99 99 99 ,have ,i made myself clear8 ,if not1 ,i will repeat for the third time1 and in its briefest terms1 the formula which is the kernel of my whole thesis4 ,the ,capitalist ,state breeds a ,collectivist ,theory which in action produces something utterly different from ,collectivism3 to wit1 the _/,servile ,state_/4 ,section ,seven ,socialism ,is the ,easiest ,apparent ,solution of the ,capitalist ,crux ,i say that the line of least resistance1 if it be followed1 leads a ,capitalist ,state to transform itself into a ,servile ,state4 ,i propose to show that this comes about from the fact that not a ,distributive but a ,collectivist solution is the easiest for a ,capitalist ,state to aim at1 and that yet1 in the very act of attempting ,collectivism1 what results is not ,collectivism at all1 but the servitude of the many1 and the confirmation in their present privilege of the few2 that is1 the ,servile ,state4 99 99 99 99 99 ,men to whom the institution of slavery is abhorrent propose for the remedy of ,capitalism one of two reforms4 ,either they would put property into the hands of most citizens1 so dividing land and capital that a determining number of families in the ,state were possessed of the means of production2 or they would put those means of production into the hands of the political officers of the community1 to be held in trust for the advantage of all4 ,the first solution may be called the attempted establishment of the _/,distributive ,state_/4 ,the second may be called the attempted establishment of the _/,collectivist ,state_/4 ,those who favour the first course are the ,conservatives or ,traditionalists4 ,they are men who respect and would1 if possible1 preserve the old forms of ,christian ,european life4 ,they know that property was thus distributed throughout the ,state during the happiest periods of our past history2 they also know that where it is properly distributed to-day1 you have greater social sanity and ease than elsewhere4 ,in general1 those who would re-establish1 if possible1 the ,distributive ,state in the place of1 and as a remedy for1 the vices and unrest of ,capitalism1 are men concerned with known realities1 and having for their ideal a condition of society which experience has tested and proved both stable and good4 ,they are then1 of the two schools of reformers1 the more practical in the sense that they deal more than do the ,collectivists 7called also ,socialists7 with things which either are or have been in actual existence4 ,but they are less practical in another sense 7as we shall see in a moment7 from the fact that the stage of the disease with which they are dealing does not readily lend itself to such a reaction as they propose4 ,the ,collectivist1 on the other hand1 proposes to put land and capital into the hands of the political officers of the community1 and this on the understanding that they shall hold such land and capital in trust for the advantage of the community4 ,in making this proposal he is evidently dealing with a state of things hitherto imaginary1 and his ideal is not one that has been tested by experience1 nor one of which our race and history can furnish instances4 ,in this sense1 therefore1 he is the less practical of the two reformers4 ,his ideal cannot be discovered in any past1 known1 and recorded phase of our society4 ,we cannot examine ,socialism in actual working1 nor can we say 7as we can say of well-divided property73 ,on such and such an occasion1 in such and such a period of ,european history1 ,collectivism was established and produced both stability and happiness in society4 ,in this sense1 therefore1 the ,collectivist is far less practical than the reformer who desires well-distributed property4 ,on the other hand1 there is a sense in which this ,socialist is more practical than that other type of reformer1 from the fact that the stage of the disease into which we have fallen apparently admits of his remedy with less shock than it admits of a reaction towards well-divided property4 ,for example3 the operation of buying out some great tract of private ownership to-day 7as a railway or a harbour company7 with public funds1 continuing its administration by publicly paid officials and converting its revenue to public use1 is a thing with which we are familiar and which seemingly might be indefinitely multiplied4 ,individual examples of such transformation of waterworks1 gas1 tramways1 from a ,capitalist to a ,collectivist basis are common1 and the change does not disturb any fundamental thing in our society4 ,when a private ,water company or ,tramway line is bought by some town and worked thereafter in the interests of the public1 the transaction is effected without any perceptible friction1 disturbs the life of no private citizen1 and seems in every way normal to the society in which it takes place4 ,upon the contrary1 the attempt to create a large number of shareholders in such enterprises and artificially to substitute many partners1 distributed throughout a great number of the population1 in the place of the original few capitalist owners1 would prove lengthy and at every step would arouse opposition1 would create disturbance1 would work at an expense of great friction1 and would be imperilled by the power of the new and many owners to sell again to a few4 ,in a word1 the man who desires to re-establish property as an institution normal to most citizens in the ,state is working against the grain of our existing ,capitalist society1 while a man who desires to establish ,socialism--that is ,collectivism--is working with the grain of that society4 ,the first is like a physician who should say to a man whose limbs were partially atrophied from disuse3 ,do this and that1 take such and such exercise1 and you will recover the use of your limbs4 ,the second is like a physician who should say3 ,you cannot go on as you are4 ,your limbs are atrophied from lack of use4 ,your attempt to conduct yourself as though they were not is useless and painful2 you had better make up your mind to be wheeled about in a fashion consonant to your disease4 ,the ,physician is the ,reformer1 his ,patient the ,proletariat4 ,it is not the purpose of this book to show how and under what difficulties a condition of well-divided property might be restored and might take the place 7even in ,england7 of that ,capitalism which is now no longer either stable or tolerable2 but for the purposes of contrast and to emphasise my argument ,i will proceed1 before showing how the ,collectivist unconsciously makes for the ,servile ,state1 to show what difficulties surround the ,distributive solution and why1 therefore1 the ,collectivist solution appeals so much more readily to men living under ,capitalism4 99 99 99 99 99 ,if ,i desire to substitute a number of small owners for a few large ones in some particular enterprise1 how shall ,i set to work8 ,i might boldly confiscate and redistribute at a blow4 ,but by what process should ,i choose the new owners8 ,even supposing that there was some machinery whereby the justice of the new distribution could be assured1 how could ,i avoid the enormous and innumerable separate acts of injustice that would attach to general redistributions8 ,to say none shall own and to confiscate is one thing2 to say all should own and apportion ownership is another4 ,action of this kind would so disturb the whole network of economic relations as to bring ruin at once to the whole body politic1 and particularly to the smaller interests indirectly affected4 ,in a society such as ours a catastrophe falling upon the ,state from outside might indirectly do good by making such a redistribution possible4 ,but no one working from within the ,state could provoke that catastrophe without ruining his own cause4 ,if1 then1 ,i proceed more slowly and more rationally and canalise the economic life of society so that small property shall gradually be built up within it1 see against what forces of inertia and custom ,i have to work to-day in a ,capitalist society6 ,if ,i desire to benefit small savings at the expense of large1 ,i must reverse the whole economy under which interest is paid upon deposits to-day4 ,it is far easier to save #ajj out of a revenue of #a1jjj than to save #aj out of a revenue of #ajj4 ,it is infinitely easier to save #aj out of a revenue of #ajj than #e out of a revenue of #ej4 ,to build up small property through thrift when once the ,mass have fallen into the proletarian trough is impossible unless you deliberately subsidise small savings1 offering them a reward which1 in competition1 they could never obtain2 and to do this the whole vast arrangement of credit must be worked backwards4 ,or1 let the policy be pursued of penalising undertakings with few owners1 of heavily taxing large blocks of shares and of subsidising with the produce small holders in proportion to the smallness of their holding4 ,here again you are met with the difficulty of a vast majority who cannot even bid for the smallest share4 ,one might multiply instances of the sort indefinitely1 but the strongest force against the distribution of ownership in a society already permeated with ,capitalist modes of thought is still the moral one3 ,will men want to own8 ,will officials1 administrators1 and lawmakers be able to shake off the power which under ,capitalism seems normal to the rich8 ,if ,i approach1 for instance1 the works of one of our great ,trusts1 purchase it with public money1 bestow1 even as a gift1 the shares thereof to its workmen1 can ,i count upon any tradition of property in their midst which will prevent their squandering the new wealth8 ,can ,i discover any relics of the co-operative instinct among such men8 ,could ,i get managers and organisers to take a group of poor men seriously or to serve them as they would serve rich men8 ,is not the whole psychology of a ,capitalist society divided between the proletarian mass which thinks in terms not of property but of employment1 and the few owners who are alone familiar with the machinery of administration8 ,i have touched but very briefly and superficially upon this matter1 because it needs no elaboration4 ,though it is evident that with a sufficient will and a sufficient social vitality property could be restored1 it is evident that all efforts to restore it have in a ,capitalist society such as our own a note of oddity1 of doubtful experiment1 of being uncoordinated with other social things around them1 which marks the heavy handicap under which any such attempt must proceed4 ,it is like recommending elasticity to the aged4 ,on the other hand1 the ,collectivist experiment is thoroughly suited 7in appearance at least7 to the ,capitalist society which it proposes to replace4 ,it works with the existing machinery of ,capitalism1 talks and thinks in the existing terms of ,capitalism1 appeals to just those appetites which ,capitalism has aroused1 and ridicules as fantastic and unheard-of just those things in society the memory of which ,capitalism has killed among men wherever the blight of it has spread4 ,so true is all this that the stupider kind of ,collectivist will often talk of a ,capitalist phase of society as the necessary precedent to a ,collectivist phase4 ,a trust or monopoly is welcomed because it furnishes a mode of transition from private to public ownership4 ,collectivism promises employment to the great mass who think of production only in terms of employment4 ,it promises to its workmen the security which a great and well-organised industrial ,capitalist unit 7like one of our railways7 can give through a system of pensions1 regular promotion1 etc41 but that security vastly increased through the fact that it is the ,state and not a mere unit of the ,state which guarantees it4 ,collectivism would administer1 would pay wages1 would promote1 would pension off1 would fine--and all the rest of it--exactly as the ,capitalist ,state does to-day4 ,the proletarian1 when the ,collectivist 7or ,socialist7 ,state is put before him1 perceives nothing in the picture save certain ameliorations of his present position4 ,who can imagine that if1 say1 two of our great industries1 ,coal and ,railways1 were handed over to the ,state tomorrow1 the armies of men organised therein would find any change in the character of their lives1 save in some increase of security and possibly in a very slight increase of earnings8 ,the whole scheme of ,collectivism presents1 so far as the proletarian mass of a ,capitalist ,state is concerned1 nothing unknown at all1 but a promise of some increment in wages and a certainty of far greater ease of mind4 ,to that small minority of a ,capitalist society which owns the means of production1 ,collectivism will of course appear as an enemy1 but1 even so1 it is an enemy which they understand and an enemy with whom they can treat in terms common both to that enemy and to themselves4 ,if1 for instance1 the ,state proposes to take over such and such a trust now paying #d per cent4 and believes that under ,state management it will make the trust pay #e per cent4 then the transference takes the form of a business proposition3 the ,state is no harder to the ,capitalists taken over than was ,mr ,yerkes to the ,underground4 ,again1 the ,state1 having greater credit and longevity1 can 7it would seem7#e buy out any existing ,capitalist body upon favourable terms4 ,again1 the discipline by which the ,state would enforce its rules upon the proletariat it employed would be the same rules as those by which the ,capitalist imposes discipline in his own interests to-day4 ,there is in the whole scheme which proposes to transform the ,capitalist into the ,collectivist ,state no element of reaction1 the use of no term with which a ,capitalist society is not familiar1 the appeal to no instinct1 whether of cowardice1 greed1 apathy1 or mechanical regulation1 with which a ,capitalist community is not amply familiar4 ,in general1 if modern ,capitalist ,england were made by magic a ,state of small owners1 we should all suffer an enormous revolution4 ,we should marvel at the insolence of the poor1 at the laziness of the contented1 at the strange diversities of task1 at the rebellious1 vigorous personalities discernible upon every side4 ,but if this modern ,capitalist ,england could1 by a process sufficiently slow to allow for the readjustment of individual interests1 be transformed into a ,collectivist ,state1 the apparent change at the end of that transition would not be conspicuous to the most of us1 and the transition itself should have met with no shocks that theory can discover4 ,the insecure and hopeless margin below the regularly paid ranks of labour would have disappeared into isolated workplaces of a penal kind3 we should hardly miss them4 ,many incomes now involving considerable duties to the ,state would have been replaced by incomes as large or larger1 involving much the same duties and bearing only the newer name of salaries4 ,the small shop-keeping class would find itself in part absorbed under public schemes at a salary1 in part engaged in the old work of distribution at secure incomes2 and such small owners as are left1 of boats1 of farms1 even of machinery1 would perhaps know the new state of things into which they had survived through nothing more novel than some increase in the irritating system of inspection and of onerous petty taxation3 they are already fairly used to both4 ,this picture of the natural transition from ,capitalism to ,collectivism seems so obvious that many ,collectivists in a generation immediately past believed that nothing stood between them and the realisation of their ideal save the unintelligence of mankind4 ,they had only to argue and expound patiently and systematically for the great transformation to become possible4 ,they had only to continue arguing and expounding for it at last to be realised4 ,i say1 of the last generation4 ,to-day that simple and superficial judgment is getting woefully disturbed4 ,the most sincere and single-minded of ,collectivists cannot but note that the practical effect of their propaganda is not an approach towards the ,collectivist ,state at all1 but towards something very different4 ,it is becoming more and more evident that with every new reform--and those reforms commonly promoted by particular ,socialists1 and in a puzzled way blessed by ,socialists in general--another state emerges more and more clearly4 ,it is becoming increasingly certain that the attempted transformation of ,capitalism into ,collectivism is resulting not in ,collectivism at all1 but in some third thing which the ,collectivist never dreamt of1 or the ,capitalist either2 and that third thing is the _/,servile_/ ,state3 a ,state1 that is1 in which the mass of men shall be constrained by law to labour to the profit of a minority1 but1 as the price of such constraint1 shall enjoy a security which the old ,capitalism did not give them4 ,why is the apparently simple and direct action of ,collectivist reform diverted into so unexpected a channel8 ,and in what new laws and institutions does modern ,england in particular and industrial society in general show that this new form of the ,state is upon us8 ,to these two questions ,i will attempt an answer in the two concluding divisions of this book4 ,section ,eight ,the ,reformers and ,reformed ,are ,alike ,making for the ,servile ,state ,i propose in this section to show how the three interests which between them account for nearly the whole of the forces making for social change in modern ,england are all necessarily drifting towards the ,servile ,state4 ,of these three interests the first two represent the ,reformers--the third the people to be ,reformed4 ,these three interests are1 first1 the ,socialist1 who is the theoretical reformer working along the line of least resistance2 secondly1 the ,practical ,man who as a practical reformer depends on his shortness of sight1 and is therefore to-day a powerful factor2 while the third is that great proletarian mass for whom the change is being effected1 and on whom it is being imposed4 ,what they are most likely to accept1 the way in which they will react upon new institutions is the most important factor of all1 for they are the material with and upon which the work is being done4 99 99 99 99 99 7#a7 ,of the ,socialist ,reformer3 ,i say that men attempting to achieve ,collectivism or ,socialism as the remedy for the evils of the ,capitalist ,state find themselves drifting not towards a ,collectivist ,state at all1 but towards a ,servile ,state4 ,the ,socialist movement1 the first of the three factors in this drift1 is itself made up of two kinds of men3 there is 7a7 the man who regards the public ownership of the means of production 7and the consequent compulsion of all citizens to work under the direction of the ,state7 as the only feasible solution of our modern social ills4 ,there is also 7b7 the man who loves the ,collectivist ideal in itself1 who does not pursue it so much because it is a solution of modern ,capitalism1 as because it is an ordered and regular form of society which appeals to him in itself4 ,he loves to consider the ideal of a ,state in which land and capital shall be held by public officials who shall order other men about and so preserve them from the consequences of their vice1 ignorance1 and folly4 ,these types are perfectly distinct1 in many respects antagonistic1 and between them they cover the whole ,socialist movement4 ,now imagine either of these men at issue with the existing state of ,capitalist society and attempting to transform it4 ,along what line of least resistance will either be led8 99 99 99 99 99 7a7 ,the first type will begin by demanding the confiscation of the means of production from the hands of their present owners1 and the vesting of them in the ,state4 ,but wait a moment4 ,that demand is an exceedingly hard thing to accomplish4 ,the present owners have between them and confiscation a stony moral barrier4 ,it is what most men would call the moral basis of property 7the instinct that property is a right71 and what all men would admit to be at least a deeply rooted tradition4 ,again1 they have behind them the innumerable complexities of modern ownership4 ,to take a very simple case4 ,decree that all common lands enclosed since so late a date as #agfj shall revert to the public4 ,there you have a very moderate case and a very defensible one4 ,but conceive for a moment how many small freeholds1 what a nexus of obligation and benefit spread over millions1 what thousands of exchanges1 what purchases made upon the difficult savings of small men such a measure would wreck6 ,it is conceivable1 for1 in the moral sphere1 society can do anything to society2 but it would bring crashing down with it twenty times the wealth involved and all the secure credit of our community4 ,in a word1 the thing is1 in the conversational use of that term1 impossible4 ,so your best type of ,socialist reformer is led to an expedient which ,i will here only mention--as it must be separately considered at length later on account of its fundamental importance--the expedient of buying out the present owner4 ,it is enough to say in this place that the attempt to buy out without confiscation is based upon an economic error4 ,this ,i shall prove in its proper place4 ,for the moment ,i assume it and pass on to the rest of my reformer's action4 ,he does not confiscate1 then2 at the most he buys out 7or attempts to buy out7 certain sections of the means of production4 ,but this action by no means covers the whole of his motive4 ,by definition the man is out to cure what he sees to be the great immediate evils of ,capitalist society4 ,he is out to cure the destitution which it causes in great multitudes and the harrowing insecurity which it imposes upon all4 ,he is out to substitute for ,capitalist society a society in which men shall all be fed1 clothed1 housed1 and in which men shall not live in a perpetual jeopardy of their housing1 clothing1 and food4 ,well1 there is a way of achieving that without confiscation4 ,this reformer rightly thinks that the ownership of the means of production by a few has caused the evils which arouse his indignation and pity4 ,but they have only been so caused on account of a combination of such limited ownership with universal freedom4 ,the combination of the two is the very definition of the ,capitalist ,state4 ,it is difficult indeed to dispossess the possessors4 ,it is by no means so difficult 7as we shall see again when we are dealing with the mass whom these changes will principally affect7 to modify the factor of freedom4 ,you can say to the ,capitalist3 ,i desire to dispossess you1 and meanwhile ,i am determined that your employees shall live tolerable lives4 ,the ,capitalist replies3 ,i refuse to be dispossessed1 and it is1 short of catastrophe1 impossible to dispossess me4 ,but if you will define the relation between my employees and myself1 ,i will undertake particular responsibilities due to my position4 ,subject the proletarian1 as a proletarian1 and because he is a proletarian1 to special laws4 ,clothe me1 the ,capitalist1 as a ,capitalist1 and because ,i am a ,capitalist1 with special converse duties under those laws4 ,i will faithfully see that they are obeyed2 ,i will compel my employees to obey them1 and ,i will undertake the new role imposed upon me by the ,state4 ,nay1 ,i will go further1 and ,i will say that such a novel arrangement will make my own profits perhaps larger and certainly more secure4 ,this idealist social reformer1 therefore1 finds the current of his demand canalised4 ,as to one part of it1 confiscation1 it is checked and barred2 as to the other1 securing human conditions for the proletariat1 the gates are open4 ,half the river is dammed by a strong weir1 but there is a sluice1 and that sluice can be lifted4 ,once lifted1 the whole force of the current will run through the opportunity so afforded it2 there will it scour and deepen its channel2 there will the main stream learn to run4 ,to drop the metaphor1 all those things in the true ,socialist's demand which are compatible with the ,servile ,state can certainly be achieved4 ,the first steps towards them are already achieved4 ,they are of such a nature that upon them can be based a further advance in the same direction1 and the whole ,capitalist ,state can be rapidly and easily transformed into the ,servile ,state1 satisfying in its transformation the more immediate claims and the more urgent demands of the social reformer whose ultimate objective indeed may be the public ownership of capital and land1 but whose driving power is a burning pity for the poverty and peril of the masses4 ,when the transformation is complete there will be no ground left1 nor any demand or necessity1 for public ownership4 ,the reformer only asked for it in order to secure security and sufficiency3 he has obtained his demand4 ,here are security and sufficiency achieved by another and much easier method1 consonant with and proceeding from the ,capitalist phase immediately preceding it3 there is no need to go further4 ,in this way the ,socialist whose motive is human good and not mere organisation is being shepherded in spite of himself away from his ,collectivist ideal and towards a society in which the possessors shall remain possessed1 the dispossessed shall remain dispossessed1 in which the mass of men shall still work for the advantage of a few1 and in which those few shall still enjoy the surplus values produced by labour1 but in which the special evils of insecurity and insufficiency1 in the main the product of freedom1 have been eliminated by the destruction of freedom4 ,at the end of the process you will have two kinds of men1 the owners economically free1 and controlling to their peace and to the guarantee of their livelihood the economically unfree non-owners4 ,but that is the ,servile ,state4 99 99 99 99 99 7b7 ,the second type of socialist reformer may be dealt with more briefly4 ,in him the exploitation of man by man excites no indignation4 ,indeed1 he is not of a type to which indignation or any other lively passion is familiar4 ,tables1 statistics1 an exact framework for life--these afford him the food that satisfies his moral appetite2 the occupation most congenial to him is the running of men3 as a machine is run4 ,to such a man the ,collectivist ideal particularly appeals4 ,it is orderly in the extreme4 ,all that human and organic complexity which is the colour of any vital society offends him by its infinite differentiation4 ,he is disturbed by multitudinous things2 and the prospect of a vast bureaucracy wherein the whole of life shall be scheduled and appointed to certain simple schemes deriving from the coordinate work of public clerks and marshalled by powerful heads of departments gives his small stomach a final satisfaction4 ,now this man1 like the other1 would prefer to begin with public property in capital and land1 and upon that basis to erect the formal scheme which so suits his peculiar temperament4 7,it need hardly be said that in his vision of a future society he conceives of himself as the head of at least a department and possibly of the whole ,state--but that is by the way47 ,but while he would prefer to begin with a ,collectivist scheme ready-made1 he finds in practice that he cannot do so4 ,he would have to confiscate just as the more hearty ,socialist would2 and if that act is very difficult to the man burning at the sight of human wrongs1 how much more difficult is it to a man impelled by no such motive force and directed by nothing more intense than a mechanical appetite for regulation8 ,he cannot confiscate or begin to confiscate4 ,at the best he will buy out the ,capitalist4 ,now1 in his case1 as in the case of the more human ,socialist1 buying out is1 as ,i shall show in its proper place1 a system impossible of general application4 ,but all those other things for which such a man cares much more than he does for the socialisation of the means of production--tabulation1 detailed administration of men1 the co-ordination of many efforts under one schedule1 the elimination of all private power to react against his ,department1 all these are immediately obtainable without disturbing the existing arrangement of society4 ,with him1 precisely as with the other socialist1 what he desires can be reached without any dispossession of the few existing possessors4 ,he has but to secure the registration of the proletariat2 next to ensure that neither they in the exercise of their freedom1 nor the employer in the exercise of his1 can produce insufficiency or insecurity--and he is content4 ,let laws exist which make the proper housing1 feeding1 clothing1 and recreation of the proletarian mass be incumbent upon the possessing class1 and the observance of such rules be imposed1 by inspection and punishment1 upon those whom he pretends to benefit1 and all that he really cares for will be achieved4 ,to such a man the ,servile ,state is hardly a thing towards which he drifts1 it is rather a tolerable alternative to his ideal ,collectivist ,state1 which alternative he is quite prepared to accept and regards favourably4 ,already the greater part of such reformers who1 a generation ago1 would have called themselves ,socialists are now less concerned with any scheme for socialising ,capital and ,land than with innumerable schemes actually existing1 some of them possessing already the force of laws1 for regulating1 running1 and drilling the proletariat without trenching by an inch upon the privilege in implements1 stores1 and land enjoyed by the small ,capitalist class4 ,the so-called ,socialist of this type has not fallen into the ,servile ,state by a miscalculation4 ,he has fathered it2 he welcomes its birth1 he foresees his power over its future4 ,so much for the ,socialist movement1 which a generation ago proposed to transform our ,capitalist society into one where the community should be the universal owner and all men equally economically free or unfree under its tutelage4 ,to-day their ideal has failed1 and of the two sources whence their energy proceeded1 the one is reluctantly1 the other gladly1 acquiescent in the advent of a society which is not ,socialist at all but ,servile4 99 99 99 99 99 7#b7 ,of the ,practical ,reformer3 ,there is another type of ,reformer1 one who prides himself on not being a socialist1 and one of the greatest weight to-day4 ,he also is making for the ,servile ,state4 ,this second factor in the change is the ,practical ,man2 and this fool1 on account of his great numbers and determining influence in the details of legislation1 must be carefully examined4 ,it is your ,practical ,man who says3 ,whatever you theorists and doctrinaires may hold with regard to this proposal 7which ,i support71 though it may offend some abstract dogma of yours1 yet in practice you must admit that it does good4 ,if you had practical experience of the misery of the ,jones' family1 or had done practical work yourself in ,pudsey1 you would have seen that a practical man1 etc4 ,it is not difficult to discern that the ,practical ,man in social reform is exactly the same animal as the ,practical ,man in every other department of human energy1 and may be discovered suffering from the same twin disabilities which stamp the ,practical ,man where-ever found3 these twin disabilities are an inability to define his own first principles and an inability to follow the consequences proceeding from his own action4 ,both these disabilities proceed from one simple and deplorable form of impotence1 the inability to think4 ,let us help the ,practical ,man in his weakness and do a little thinking for him4 ,as a social reformer he has of course 7though he does not know it7 first principles and dogmas like all the rest of us1 and his first principles and dogmas are exactly the same as those which his intellectual superiors hold in the matter of social reform4 ,the two things intolerable to him as a decent citizen 7though a very stupid human being7 are insufficiency and insecurity4 ,when he was working in the slums of ,pudsey or raiding the proletarian ,jones's from the secure base of ,toynbee ,hall1 what shocked the worthy man most was unemployment and destitution3 that is1 insecurity and insufficiency in flesh and blood4 ,now1 if the ,socialist who has thought out his case1 whether as a mere organiser or as a man hungering and thirsting after justice1 is led away from ,socialism and towards the ,servile ,state by the force of modern things in ,england1 how much more easily do you not think the ,practical ,man will be conducted towards that same ,servile ,state1 like any donkey to his grazing ground8 ,to those dull and shortsighted eyes the immediate solution which even the beginnings of the ,servile ,state propose are what a declivity is to a piece of brainless matter4 ,the piece of brainless matter rolls down the declivity1 and the ,practical ,man lollops from ,capitalism to the ,servile ,state with the same inevitable ease4 ,jones has not got enough4 ,if you give him something in charity1 that something will be soon consumed1 and then ,jones will again not have enough4 ,jones has been seven weeks out of work4 ,if you get him work under our unorganised and wasteful system1 etc41 he may lose it just as he lost his first jobs4 ,the slums of ,pudsey1 as the ,practical ,man knows by ,practical experience1 are often unemployable4 ,then there are the ravages of drink3 more fatal still the dreadful habit mankind has of forming families and breeding children4 ,the worthy fellow notes that as a practical matter of fact such men do not work unless you make them4 ,he does not1 because he cannot1 coordinate all these things4 ,he knows nothing of a society in which free men were once owners1 nor of the co-operative and instinctive institutions for the protection of ownership which such a society spontaneously breeds4 ,he takes the world as he finds it--and the consequence is that whereas men of greater capacity may admit with different degrees of reluctance the general principles of the ,servile ,state1 he1 the ,practical ,man1 positively gloats on every new detail in the building up of that form of society4 ,and the destruction of freedom by inches 7though he does not see it to be the destruction of freedom7 is the one panacea so obvious that he marvels at the doctrinaires who resist or suspect the process4 ,it has been necessary to waste so much time on this deplorable individual because the circumstances of our generation give him a peculiar power4 ,under the conditions of modern exchange a man of that sort enjoys great advantages4 ,he is to be found as he never was in any other society before our own1 possessed of wealth1 and political as never was any such citizen until our time4 ,of history with all its lessons2 of the great schemes of philosophy and religion1 of human nature itself he is blank4 ,the ,practical ,man left to himself would not produce the ,servile ,state4 ,he would not produce anything but a welter of anarchic restrictions which would lead at last to some kind of revolt4 ,unfortunately1 he is not left to himself4 ,he is but the ally or flanking party of great forces which he does nothing to oppose1 and of particular men1 able and prepared for the work of general change1 who use him with gratitude and contempt4 ,were he not so numerous in modern ,england1 and1 under the extraordinary conditions of a ,capitalist ,state1 so economically powerful1 ,i would have neglected him in this analysis4 ,as it is1 we may console ourselves by remembering that the advent of the ,servile ,state1 with its powerful organisation and necessity for lucid thought in those who govern1 will certainly eliminate him4 99 99 99 99 99 ,our reformers1 then1 both those who think and those who do not1 both those who are conscious of the process and those who are unconscious of it1 are making directly for the ,servile ,state4 99 99 99 99 99 7#c7 ,what of the third factor8 ,what of the people about to be reformed8 ,what of the millions upon whose carcasses the reformers are at work1 and who are the subject of the great experiment8 ,do they tend1 as material1 to accept or to reject that transformation from free proletarianism to servitude which is the argument of this book8 ,the question is an important one to decide1 for upon whether the material is suitable or unsuitable for the work to which it is subjected1 depends the success of every experiment making for the ,servile ,state4 ,the mass of men in the ,capitalist ,state is proletarian4 ,as a matter of definition1 the actual number of the proletariat and the proportion that number bears to the total number of families in the ,state may vary1 but must be sufficient to determine the general character of the ,state before we can call that ,state ,capitalist4 ,but1 as we have seen1 the ,capitalist ,state is not a stable1 and therefore not a permanent1 condition of society4 ,it has proved ephemeral2 and upon that very account the proletariat in any ,capitalist ,state retains to a greater or less degree some memories of a state of society in which its ancestors were possessors of property and economically free4 ,the strength of this memory or tradition is the first element we have to bear in mind in our problem1 when we examine how far a particular proletariat1 such as the ,english proletariat to-day1 is ready to accept the ,servile ,state1 which would condemn it to a perpetual loss of property and of all the free habit which property engenders4 ,next be it noted that under conditions of freedom the ,capitalist class may be entered by the more cunning or the more fortunate of the proletariat class4 ,recruitment of the kind was originally sufficiently common in the first development of ,capitalism to be a standing feature in society and to impress the imagination of the general4 ,such recruitment is still possible4 ,the proportion which it bears to the whole proletariat1 the chance which each member of the proletariat may think he has of escaping from his proletarian condition in a particular phase of ,capitalism such as is ours to-day1 is the second factor in the problem4 ,the third factor1 and by far the greatest of all1 is the appetite of the dispossessed for that security and sufficiency of which ,capitalism1 with its essential condition of freedom1 has deprived them4 ,now let us consider the interplay of these three factors in the ,english proletariat as we actually know it at this moment4 ,that proletariat is certainly the great mass of the ,state3 it covers about nineteen-twentieths of the population--if we exclude ,ireland1 where1 as ,i shall point out in my concluding pages1 the reaction against ,capitalism1 and therefore against its development towards a ,servile ,state1 is already successful4 99 99 99 99 99 ,as to the first factor1 it has changed very rapidly within the memory of men now living4 ,the traditional rights of property are still strong in the minds of the ,english poor4 ,all the moral connotations of that right are familiar to them4 ,they are familiar with the conception of theft as a wrong2 they are tenacious of any scraps of property which they may acquire4 ,they could all explain what is meant by ownership1 by legacy1 by exchange1 and by gift1 and even by contract4 ,there is not one but could put himself in the position1 mentally1 of an owner4 ,but the actual experience of ownership1 and the effect which that experience has upon character and upon one's view of the ,state is a very different matter4 ,within the memory of people still living a sufficient number of ,englishmen were owning 7as small freeholders1 small masters1 etc47 to give to the institution of property coupled with freedom a very vivid effect upon the popular mind4 ,more than this1 there was a living tradition proceeding from the lips of men who could still bear living testimony to the relics of a better state of things4 ,i have myself spoken1 when ,i was a boy1 to old labourers in the neighbourhood of ,oxford who had risked their skins in armed protest against the enclosure of certain commons1 and who had of course suffered imprisonment by a wealthy judge as the reward of their courage2 and ,i have myself spoken in ,lancashire to old men who could retrace for me1 either from their personal experience the last phases of small ownership in the textile trade1 or1 from what their fathers had told them1 the conditions of a time when small and well-divided ownership in cottage looms was actually common4 ,all that has passed4 ,the last chapter of its passage has been singularly rapid4 ,roughly speaking1 it is the generation brought up under the ,education ,acts of the last forty years which has grown up definitely and hopelessly proletarian4 ,the present instinct1 use1 and meaning of property is lost to it3 and this has had two very powerful effects1 each strongly inclining our modern wage-earners to ignore the old barriers which lay between a condition of servitude and a condition of freedom4 ,the first effect is this3 that property is no longer what they seek1 nor what they think obtainable for themselves4 ,the second effect is that they regard the possessors of property as a class apart1 whom they always must ultimately obey1 often envy1 and sometimes hate2 whose moral right to so singular a position most of them would hesitate to concede1 and many of them would now strongly deny1 but whose position they1 at any rate1 accept as a known and permanent social fact1 the origins of which they have forgotten1 and the foundations of which they believe to be immemorial4 ,to sum up3 ,the attitude of the proletariat in ,england to-day 7the attitude of the overwhelming majority1 that is1 of ,english families7 towards property and towards that freedom which is alone obtainable through property is no longer an attitude of experience or of expectation4 ,they think of themselves as wage-earners4 ,to increase the weekly stipend of the wage-earner is an object which they vividly appreciate and pursue4 ,to make him cease to be a wage earner is an object that would seem to them entirely outside the realities of life4 ,what of the second factor1 the gambling chance which the ,capitalist system1 with its necessary condition of freedom1 of the legal power to bargain fully1 and so forth1 permits to the proletarian of escaping from his proletariat surroundings8 ,of this gambling chance and the effect it has upon men's minds we may say that1 while it has not disappeared1 it has very greatly lost in force during the last forty years4 ,one often meets men who tell one1 whether they are speaking in defence of or against the ,capitalist system1 that it still blinds the proletarian to any common consciousness of class1 because the proletarian still has the example before him of members of his class1 whom he has known1 rising 7usually by various forms of villainy7 to the position of capitalist4 ,but when one goes down among the working men themselves1 one discovers that the hope of such a change in the mind of any individual worker is now exceedingly remote4 ,millions of men in great groups of industry1 notably in the transport industry and in the mines1 have quite given up such an expectation4 ,tiny as the chance ever was1 exaggerated as the hopes in a lottery always are1 that tiny chance has fallen in the general opinion of the workers to be negligible1 and that hope which a lottery breeds is extinguished4 ,the proletarian now regards himself as definitely proletarian1 nor destined within human likelihood to be anything but proletarian4 99 99 99 99 99 ,these two factors1 then1 the memory of an older condition of economic freedom1 and the effect of a hope individuals might entertain of escaping from the wage-earning class1 the two factors which might act most strongly against the acceptation of the ,servile ,state by that class1 have so fallen in value that they offer but little opposition to the third factor in the situation which is making so strongly for the ,servile ,state1 and which consists in the necessity all men acutely feel for sufficiency and for security4 ,it is this third factor alone which need be seriously considered to-day1 when we ask ourselves how far the material upon which social reform is working1 that is1 the masses of the people1 may be ready to accept the change4 ,the thing may be put in many ways4 ,i will put it in what ,i believe to be the most conclusive of all4 ,if you were to approach those millions of families now living at a wage1 with the proposal for a contract of service for life1 guaranteeing them employment at what each regarded as his usual full wage1 how many would refuse8 ,such a contract would1 of course1 involve a loss of freedom3 a life-contract of the kind is1 to be accurate1 no contract at all4 ,it is the negation of contract and the acceptation of status4 ,it would lay the man that undertook it under an obligation of forced labour1 coterminous and coincident with his power to labour4 ,it would be a permanent renunciation of his right 7if such a right exists7 to the surplus values created by his labour4 ,if we ask ourselves how many men1 or rather how many families1 would prefer freedom 7with its accompaniments of certain insecurity and possible insufficiency7 to such a life-contract1 no one can deny that the answer is3 ,very few would refuse it4 ,that is the key to the whole matter4 ,what proportion would refuse it no one can determine2 but ,i say that even as a voluntary offer1 and not as a compulsory obligation1 a contract of this sort which would for the future destroy contract and re-erect status of a servile sort would be thought a boon by the mass of the proletariat to-day4 ,now take the truth from another aspect--by considering it thus from one point of view and from another we can appreciate it best--,of what are the mass of men now most afraid in a ,capitalist ,state8 ,not of the punishments that can be inflicted by a ,court of ,law1 but of the sack4 ,you may ask a man why he does not resist such and such a legal infamy2 why he permits himself to be the victim of fines and deductions from which the ,truck ,acts specifically protect him2 why he cannot assert his opinion in this or that matter2 why he has accepted1 without a blow1 such and such an insult4 ,some generations ago a man challenged to tell you why he forswore his manhood in any particular regard would have answered you that it was because he feared punishment at the hands of the law2 to-day he will tell you that it is because he fears unemployment4 ,private law has for the second time in our long ,european story overcome public law1 and the sanctions which the ,capitalist can call to the aid of his private rule1 by the action of his private will1 are stronger than those which the public ,courts can impose4 ,in the seventeenth century a man feared to go to ,mass lest the judges should punish him4 ,to-day a man fears to speak in favour of some social theory which he holds to be just and true lest his master should punish him4 ,to deny the rule of public powers once involved public punishments which most men dreaded1 though some stood out4 ,to deny the rule of private powers involves to-day a private punishment against the threat of which very few indeed dare to stand out4 ,look at the matter from yet another aspect4 ,a law is passed 7let us suppose7 which increases the total revenue of a wage-earner1 or guarantees him against the insecurity of his position in some small degree4 ,the administration of that law requires1 upon the one hand1 a close inquisition into the man's circumstances by public officials1 and1 upon the other hand1 the administration of its benefits by that particular ,capitalist or group of ,capitalists whom the wage-earner serves to enrich4 ,do the ,servile conditions attaching to this material benefit prevent a proletarian in ,england to-day from preferring the benefit to freedom8 ,it is notorious that they do not4 ,no matter from what angle you approach the business1 the truth is always the same4 ,that great mass of wage-earners upon which our society now reposes understands as a present good all that will increase even to some small amount their present revenue and all that may guarantee them against those perils of insecurity to which they are perpetually subject4 ,they understand and welcome a good of this kind1 and they are perfectly willing to pay for that good the corresponding price of control and enregimentation1 exercised in gradually increasing degree by those who are their paymasters4 99 99 99 99 99 ,it would be easy by substituting superficial for fundamental things1 or even by proposing certain terms and phrases to be used in the place of terms and phrases now current it would be easy1 ,i say1 by such methods to ridicule or to oppose the prime truths which ,i am here submitting4 ,they none the less remain truths4 ,substitute for the term employee in one of our new laws the term serf1 even do so mild a thing as to substitute the traditional term master for the word employer1 and the blunt words might breed revolt4 ,impose of a sudden the full conditions of a ,servile ,state upon modern ,england1 and it would certainly breed revolt4 ,but my point is that when the foundations of the thing have to be laid and the first great steps taken1 there is no revolt2 on the contrary1 there is acquiescence and for the most part gratitude upon the part of the poor4 ,after the long terrors imposed upon them through a freedom unaccompanied by property1 they see1 at the expense of losing a mere legal freedom1 the very real prospect of having enough and not losing it4 ,all forces1 then1 are making for the ,servile ,state in this the final phase of our evil ,capitalist society in ,england4 ,the generous reformer is canalised towards it2 the ungenerous one finds it a very mirror of his ideal2 the herd of practical men meet at every stage in its inception the practical steps which they expected and demanded2 while that proletarian mass upon whom the experiment is being tried have lost the tradition of property and of freedom which might resist the change1 and are most powerfully inclined to its acceptance by the positive benefits which it confers4 ,it may be objected that however true all this may be1 no one can1 upon such theoretical grounds1 regard the ,servile ,state as something really approaching us4 ,we need not believe in its advent 7we shall be told7 until we see the first effects of its action4 ,to this ,i answer that the first effects of its action are already apparent4 ,the ,servile ,state is1 in industrial ,england to-day1 no longer a menace but something in actual existence4 ,it is in process of construction4 ,the first main lines of it are already plotted out2 the cornerstone of it is already laid4 ,to see the truth of this it is enough to consider laws and projects of law1 the first of which we already enjoy1 while the last will pass from project to positive statute in due process of time4 ,appendix on ,buying-,out ,there is an impression abroad among those who propose to expropriate the ,capitalist class for the benefit of the ,state1 but who appreciate the difficulties in the way of direct confiscation1 that by spreading the process over a sufficient number of years and pursuing it after a certain fashion bearing all the outward appearances of a purchase1 the expropriation could be effected without the consequences and attendant difficulties of direct confiscation4 ,in other words1 there is an impression that the ,state could buyout the ,capitalist class without their knowing it1 and that in a sort of painless way this class can be slowly conjured out of existence4 ,the impression is held in a confused fashion by most of those who cherish it1 and will not bear a clear analysis4 ,it is impossible by any jugglery to buyout the universality of the means of production without confiscation4 ,to prove this1 consider a concrete case which puts the problem in the simplest terms3-- ,a community of twenty-two families lives upon the produce of two farms1 the property of only two families out of that twenty-two4 ,the remaining twenty families are ,proletarian4 ,the two families1 with their ploughs1 stores1 land1 etc41 are ,capitalist4 ,the labour of the twenty proletarian families applied to the land and capital of these two capitalist families produces #cjj measures of wheat1 of which #bjj measures1 or #aj measures each1 form the annual support of the twenty proletarian families2 the remaining #ajj measures are the surplus value retained as rent1 interest1 and profit by the two ,capitalist families1 each of which has thus a yearly income of #ej measures4 ,the ,state proposes to produce1 after a certain length of time1 a condition of affairs such that the surplus values shall no longer go to the two ,capitalist families1 but shall be distributed to the advantage of the whole community1 while it1 the ,state1 shall itself become the unembarrassed owner of both farms4 ,now capital is accumulated with the object of a certain return as the reward of accumulation4 ,instead of spending his money1 a man saves it with the object of retaining as the result of that saving a certain yearly revenue4 ,the measure of this does not fall in a particular society at a particular time below a certain level4 ,in other words1 if a man cannot get a certain minimum reward for his accumulation1 he will not accumulate but spend4 ,what is called in economics ,the ,law of ,diminishing ,returns acts so that continual additions to capital1 other things being equal 7that is1 the methods of production remaining the same71 do not provide a corresponding increase of revenue4 ,a thousand measures of capital applied to a particular area of natural forces will produce1 for instance1 #dj measures yearly1 or #d per cent42 but #bjjj measures applied in the same fashion will not produce #hj measures4 ,they will produce more than the thousand measures did1 but not more in proportion2 not double4 ,they will produce1 say1 #fj measures1 or #c per cent41 upon the capital4 ,the action of this universal principle automatically checks the accumulation of capital when it has reached such a point that the proportionate return is the least which a man will accept4 ,if it falls below that he will spend rather than accumulate4 ,the limit of this minimum in any particular society at any particular time gives the measure to what we call the ,effective ,desire of ,accumulation4 ,thus in ,england to-day it is a little over #c per cent4 ,the minimum which limits the accumulation of capital is a minimum return of about one-thirtieth yearly upon such capital1 and this we may call for shortness the ,e4,d4,a4 of our society at the present time4 ,when1 therefore1 the ,capitalist estimates the full value of his possessions1 he counts them in so many years' purchase4#f ,and that means that he is willing to take in a lump sum down for his possessions so many times the yearly revenue which he at present enjoys4 ,if his ,e4,d4,a4 is one-thirtieth1 he will take a lump sum representing thirty times his annual revenue4 ,so far so good4 ,let us suppose the two ,capitalists in our example to have an ,e4,d4,a4 of one-thirtieth4 ,they will sell to the ,state if the ,state can put up #cjjj measures of wheat4 ,now1 of course1 the ,state can do nothing of the kind4 ,the accumulations of wheat being already in the hands of the ,capitalists1 and those accumulations amounting to much less than #cjjj measures of wheat1 the thing appears to be a deadlock4 ,but it is not a deadlock if the ,capitalist is a fool4 ,the ,state can go to the ,capitalists and say3 ,hand me over your farms1 and against them ,i will give you guarantee that you shall be paid rather more than #ajj measures of wheat a year for the thirty years4 ,in fact1 ,i will pay you half as much again until these extra payments amount to a purchase of your original stock4 ,out of what does this extra amount come8 ,out of the ,state's power to tax4 ,the ,state can levy a tax upon the profits of both ,capitalists ,a and ,b1 and pay them the extra with their own money4 ,in so simple an example it is evident that this ringing of the changes would be spotted by the victims1 and that they would bring against it precisely the same forces which they would bring against the much simpler and more straightforward process of immediate confiscation4 ,but it is argued that in a complex ,state1 where you are dealing with myriads of individual ,capitalists and thousands of particular forms of profit1 the process can be masked4 ,there are two ways in which the ,state can mask its action 7according to this policy74 ,it can buy out first one small area of land and capital out of the general taxation and then another1 and then another1 until the whole has been transferred2 or it can tax with peculiar severity certain trades which the rest who are left immune will abandon to their ruin1 and with the general taxation plus this special taxation buy out those unfortunate trades which will1 of course1 have sunk heavily in value under the attack4 ,the second of these tricks will soon be apparent in any society1 however complex2 for after one unpopular trade had been selected for attack the trying on of the same methods in another less unpopular field will at once rouse suspicion4#g ,the first method1 however1 might have some chance of success1 at least for a long time after it was begun1 in a highly complex and numerous society were it not for a certain check which comes in of itself4 ,that check is the fact that the ,capitalist only takes more than his old yearly revenue with the object of reinvesting the surplus4 ,i have a thousand pounds in ,brighton railway stock1 yielding me #c per cent43 #cj a year4 ,the ,government asks me to exchange my bit of paper against another bit of paper guaranteeing the payment of #ej a year1 that is1 an extra rate a year1 for so many years as will represent over and above the regular interest paid a purchase of my stock4 ,the ,government's bit of paper promises to pay to the holder #ej a year for1 say1 thirty-eight years4 ,i am delighted to make the exchange1 not because ,i am such a fool as to enjoy the prospect of my property being extinguished at the end of thirty-eight years1 but because ,i hope to be able to reinvest the extra #bj every year in something else that will bring me in #c per cent4 ,thus1 at the end of the thirty-eight years ,i shall 7or my heirs7 be better off than ,i was at the beginning of the transaction1 and ,i shall have enjoyed during its maturing my old #cj a year all the same4 ,the ,state can purchase thus on a small scale by subsidising purchase out of the general taxation4 ,it can1 therefore1 play this trick over a small area and for a short time with success4 ,but the moment this area passes a very narrow limit the market for investment is found to be restricted1 ,capital automatically takes alarm1 the ,state can no longer offer its paper guarantees save at an enhanced price4 ,if it tries to turn the position by further raising taxation to what ,capital regards as confiscatory rates1 there will be opposed to its action just the same forces as would be opposed to frank and open expropriation4 ,the matter is one of plain arithmetic1 and all the confusion introduced by the complex mechanism of finance can no more change the fundamental and arithmetical principles involved than can the accumulation of triangles in an ordnance survey reduce the internal angles of the largest triangle to less than #ahj degrees4#h ,in fine3 if you desire to confiscate1 you must confiscate4 ,you cannot outflank the enemy1 as ,financiers in the city and sharpers on the racecourse outflank the simpler of mankind1 nor can you conduct the general process of expropriation upon a muddle-headed hope that somehow or other something will come out of nothing in the end4 ,there are1 indeed1 two ways in which the ,state could expropriate without meeting the resistance that must be present against any attempt at confiscation4 ,but the first of these ways is precarious1 the second insufficient4 ,they are as follows3-- 7#a7 ,the ,state can promise the ,capitalist a larger yearly revenue than he is getting in the expectation that it1 the ,state1 can manage the business better than the ,capitalist1 or that some future expansion will come to its aid4 ,in other words1 if the ,state makes a bigger profit out of the thing than the ,capitalist1 it can buy out the ,capitalist just as a private individual with a similar business proposition can buy him out4 ,but the converse of this is that if the ,state has calculated badly1 or has bad luck1 it would find itself endowing the ,capitalists of the future instead of gradually extinguishing them4 ,in this fashion the ,state could have socialised without confiscation the railways of this country if it had taken them over fifty years ago1 promising the then owners more than they were then obtaining4 ,but if it had socialised the hansom cab in the nineties1 it would now be supporting in perpetuity that worthy but extinct type the cab-owner 7and his children for ever7 at the expense of the community4 7#b7 ,the second way in which the ,state can expropriate without confiscation is by annuity4 ,it can say to such ,capitalists as have no heirs or care little for their fate if they have3 ,you have only got so much time to live and to enjoy your #cj1 will you take #ej until you die8 ,upon the bargain being accepted the ,state will1 in process of time1 though not immediately upon the death of the annuitant1 become an unembarrassed owner of what had been the annuitant's share in the means of production4 ,but the area over which this method can be exercised is a very small one4 ,it is not of itself a sufficient instrument for the expropriation of any considerable field4 ,i need hardly add that as a matter of fact the so-called ,socialist and confiscatory measures of our time have nothing to do with the problem here discussed4 ,the ,state is indeed confiscating1 that is1 it is taxing in many cases in such a fashion as to impoverish the taxpayer and is lessening his capital rather than shearing his income4 ,but it is not putting the proceeds into the means of production4 ,it is either using them for immediate consumption in the shape of new official salaries or handing them over to another set of ,capitalists4#i ,but these practical considerations of the way in which sham ,socialist experiments are working belong rather to my next section1 in which ,i shall deal with the actual beginnings of the ,servile ,state in our midst4 ,section ,nine ,the ,servile ,state ,has ,begun ,in this last division of my book ,i deal with the actual appearance of the ,servile ,state in certain laws and proposals now familiar to the ,industrial ,society of modern ,england4 ,these are the patent objects1 laws and projects of laws1 which lend stuff to my argument1 and show that it is based not upon a mere deduction1 but upon an observation of things4 ,two forms of this proof are evident3 first1 the laws and proposals which subject the ,proletariat to ,servile conditions2 next1 the fact that the ,capitalist1 so far from being expropriated by modern ,socialist experiments1 is being confirmed in his power4 ,i take these in their order1 and ,i begin by asking in what statutes or proposals the ,servile ,state first appeared among us4 ,a false conception of our subject might lead one to find the origins of the ,servile ,state in the restrictions imposed upon certain forms of manufacture1 and the corresponding duties laid upon the ,capitalist in the interest of his workmen4 ,the ,factory ,laws1 as they are in this country1 would seem to offer upon this superficial and erroneous view a starting point4 ,they do nothing of the kind2 and the view is superficial and erroneous because it neglects the fundamentals of the case4 ,what distinguishes the ,servile ,state is not the interference of law with the action of any citizen even in connection with industrial matters4 ,such interference may or may not indicate the presence of a ,servile status4 ,it in no way indicates the presence of that status when it forbids a particular kind of human action to be undertaken by the citizen as a citizen4 ,the legislator says1 for instance1 ,you may pluck roses2 but as ,i notice that you sometimes scratch yourself1 ,i will put you in prison unless you cut them with scissors at least #abb millimetres long1 and ,i will appoint one thousand inspectors to go round the country seeing whether the law is observed4 ,my brother-in-law shall be at the head of the ,department at #b1jjj a year4 ,we are all familiar with that type of legislation4 ,we are all familiar with the arguments for and against it in any particular case4 ,we may regard it as onerous1 futile1 or beneficent1 or in any other light1 according to our various temperaments4 ,but it does not fall within the category of servile legislation1 because it establishes no distinction between two classes of citizens1 marking off the one as legally distinct from the other by a criterion of manual labour or of income4 ,this is even true of such regulations as those which compel a ,cotton ,mill1 for instance1 to have no less than such and such an amount of cubic space for each operative1 and such and such protection for dangerous machinery4 ,these laws do not concern themselves with the nature1 the amount1 or even the existence of a contract for service4 ,the object1 for example1 of the law which compels one to fence off certain types of machinery is simply to protect human life1 regardless of whether the human being so protected is rich or poor1 ,capitalist or ,proletarian4 ,these laws may in effect work in our society so that the ,capitalist is made responsible for the ,proletarian1 but he is not responsible qua ,capitalist1 nor is the ,proletarian protected qua ,proletarian4 ,in the same way the law may compel me1 if ,i am a ,riparian owner1 to put up a fence of statutory strength wherever the water of my river is of more than a statutory depth4 ,now it cannot compel me to do this unless ,i am the owner of the land4 ,in a sense1 therefore1 this might be called the recognition of my ,status1 because1 by the nature of the case1 only landowners can be affected by the law1 and landowners would be compelled by it to safeguard the lives of all1 whether they were or were not owners of land4 ,but the category so established would be purely accidental4 ,the object and method of the law do not concern themselves with a distinction between citizens4 ,a close observer might indeed discover certain points in the ,factory laws1 details and phrases1 which did distinctly connote the existence of a ,capitalist and of a ,proletarian class4 ,but we must take the statutes as a whole and the order in which they were produced1 above all1 the general motive and expressions governing each main statute1 in order to judge whether such examples of interference give us an origin or not4 ,the verdict will be that they do not4 ,such legislation may be oppressive in any degree or necessary in any degree1 but it does not establish status in the place of contract1 and it is not1 therefore1 servile4 ,neither are those laws servile which in practice attach to the poor and not to the rich4 ,compulsory education is in legal theory required of every citizen for his children4 ,the state of mind which goes with plutocracy exempts of course all above a certain standard of wealth from this law4 ,but the law does apply to the universality of the commonwealth1 and all families resident in ,great ,britain 7not in ,ireland7 are subject to its provisions4 ,these are not origins4 ,a true origin to the legislation ,i approach comes later4 ,the first example of servile legislation to be discovered upon the ,statute ,book is that which establishes the present form of ,employer's ,liability4 ,i am far from saying that that law was passed1 as modern laws are beginning to be passed1 with the direct object of establishing a new status2 though it was passed with some consciousness on the part of the legislator that such a new status was in existence as a social fact4 ,its motive was merely humane1 and the relief which it afforded seemed merely necessary at the time2 but it is an instructive example of the way in which a small neglect of strict doctrine and a slight toleration of anomaly admit great changes into the ,state4 ,there had existed from all time in every community1 and there was founded upon common sense1 the legal doctrine that if one citizen was so placed with regard to another by contract that he must in the fulfilment of that contract perform certain services1 and if those services accidentally involved damages to a third party1 not the actual perpetrator of the damage1 but he who designed the particular operation leading to it was responsible4 ,the point is subtle1 but1 as ,i say1 fundamental4 ,it involved no distinction of status between employer and employed4 ,citizen ,a offered citizen ,b a sack of wheat down if citizen ,b would plough for him a piece of land which might or might not produce more than a sack of wheat4 ,of course citizen ,a expected it would produce more1 and was awaiting a surplus value1 or he would not have made the contract with citizen ,b4 ,but1 at any rate1 citizen ,b put his name to the agreement1 and as a free man1 capable of contracting1 was correspondingly bound to fulfil it4 ,in fulfilling this contract the ploughshare ,b is driving destroys a pipe conveying water by agreement through ,a's land to ,c4 ,c suffers damage1 and to recover the equivalent of that damage his action in justice and common sense can only be against ,a1 for ,b was carrying out a plan and instruction of which ,a was the author4 ,c is a third party who had nothing to do with such a contract and could not possibly have justice save by his chances of getting it from ,a1 who was the true author of the unintentional loss inflicted1 since he designed the course of work4 ,but when the damage is not done to ,c at all1 but to ,b1 who is concerned with a work the risks of which are known and willingly undertaken1 it is quite another matter4 ,citizen ,a contracts with citizen ,b that citizen ,b1 in consideration of a sack of wheat1 shall plough a bit of land4 ,certain known risks must attach to that operation4 ,citizen ,b1 if he is a free man1 undertakes those risks with his eyes open4 ,for instance1 he may sprain his wrist in turning the plough1 or one of the horses may kick him while he is having his bread-and-cheese4 ,if upon such an accident ,a is compelled to pay damages to ,b1 a difference of status is at once recognised4 ,b undertook to do work which1 by all the theory of free contract1 was1 with its risks and its expense of energy1 the equivalent in ,b's own eyes of a sack of wheat2 yet a law is passed to say that ,b can have more than that sack of wheat if he is hurt4 ,there is no converse right of ,a against ,b4 ,if the employer suffers by such an accident to the employee1 he is not allowed to dock that sack of wheat1 though it was regarded in the contract as the equivalent to a certain amount of labour to be performed which1 as a fact1 has not been performed4 ,a has no action unless ,b has been culpably negligent or remiss4 ,in other words1 the mere fact that one man is working and the other not is the fundamental consideration on which the law is built1 and the law says3 ,you are not a free man making a free contract with all its consequences4 ,you are a worker1 and therefore an inferior3 you are an employee2 and that status gives you a special position which would not be recognised in the other party to the contract4 ,the principle is pushed still further when an employer is made liable for an accident happening to one of his employees at the hands of another employee4 ,a gives a sack of wheat to ,b and ,d each if they will dig a well for him4 ,all three parties are cognisant of the risks and accept them in the contract4 ,b1 holding the rope on which ,d is lowered1 lets it slip4 ,if they were all three men of exactly equal status1 obviously ,d's action would be against ,b4 ,but they are not of equal status in ,england to-day4 ,b and ,d are employees1 and are therefore in a special and inferior position before the law compared with their employer ,a4 ,d's action is1 by this novel principle1 no longer against ,b1 who accidentally injured him by a personal act1 however involuntary1 for which a free man would be responsible1 but against ,a1 who was innocent of the whole business4 ,now in all this it is quite clear that ,a has peculiar duties not because he is a citizen1 but because he is something more3 an employer2 and ,b and ,d have special claims on ,a1 not because they are citizens1 but because they are something less3 viz4 employees4 ,they can claim protection from ,a1 as inferiors of a superior in a ,state admitting such distinctions and patronage4 ,it will occur at once to the reader that in our existing social state the employee will be very grateful for such legislation4 ,one workman cannot recover from another simply because the other will have no goods out of which to pay damages4 ,let the burden1 therefore1 fall upon the rich man6 ,excellent4 ,but that is not the point4 ,to argue thus is to say that ,servile legislation is necessary if we are to solve the problems raised by ,capitalism4 ,it remains servile legislation none the less4 ,it is legislation that would not exist in a society where property was well divided and where a citizen could normally pay damages for the harm he had himself caused4#aj ,this first trickle of the stream1 however1 though it is of considerable historical interest as a point of departure1 is not of very definite moment to our subject compared with the great bulk of later proposals1 some of which are already law1 others upon the point of becoming law1 and which definitely recognise the ,servile ,state1 the re-establishment of status in the place of contract1 and the universal division of citizens into two categories of employers and employed4 99 99 99 99 99 ,these last merit a very different consideration1 for they will represent to history the conscious and designed entry of ,servile ,institutions into the old ,christian ,state4 ,they are not origins1 small indications of coming change which the historian will painfully discover as a curiosity4 ,they are the admitted foundations of a new order1 deliberately planned by a few1 confusedly accepted by the many1 as the basis upon which a novel and stable society shall arise to replace the unstable and passing phase of ,capitalism4 ,they fall roughly into three categories3-- 7#a7 ,measures by which the insecurity of the proletariat shall be relieved through the action of the employing class1 or of the proletariat itself acting under compulsion4 7#b7 ,measures by which the employer shall be compelled to give not less than a certain minimum for any labour he may purchase1 and 7#c7 ,measures which compel a man lacking the means of production to labour1 though he may have made no contract to that effect4 ,the last two1 as will be seen in a moment1 are complementary one of another4 ,as to the first3 ,measures to palliate the insecurity of the proletariat4 ,we have of this an example in actual law at this moment4 ,and that law the ,insurance ,act 7whose political source and motive ,i am not here discussing7 follows in every particular the lines of a ,servile ,state4 7a7 ,its fundamental criterion is employment4 ,in other words1 ,i am compelled to enter a scheme providing me against the mischances of illness and unemployment not because ,i am a citizen1 but only if ,i am3 7#a7 ,exchanging services for goods2 and either 7#b7 ,obtaining less than a certain amount of goods for those services1 or 7#c7 ,a vulgar fellow working with his hands4 ,the law carefully excludes from its provisions those forms of labour to which the educated and therefore powerful classes are subject1 and further excludes from compulsion the mass of those who are for the moment earning enough to make them a class to be reckoned with as economically free4 ,i may be a writer of books who1 should he fall ill1 will leave in the greatest distress the family which he supports4 ,if the legislator were concerned for the morals of citizens1 ,i should most undoubtedly come under this law1 under the form of a compulsory insurance added to my income tax4 ,but the legislator is not concerned with people of my sort4 ,he is concerned with a new status which he recognises in the ,state1 to wit1 the proletariat4 ,he envisages the proletariat not quite accurately as men either poor1 or1 if they are not poor1 at any rate vulgar people working with their hands1 and he legislates accordingly4 7b7 ,still more striking1 as an example of status taking the place of contract1 is the fact that this law puts the duty of controlling the proletariat and of seeing that the law is obeyed not upon the proletariat itself1 but upon the ,capitalist class4 ,now this point is of an importance that cannot be exaggerated4 ,the future historian1 whatever his interest in the first indications of that profound revolution through which we are so rapidly passing1 will most certainly fix upon that one point as the cardinal landmark of our times4 ,the legislator surveying the ,capitalist ,state proposes as a remedy for certain of its evils the establishment of two categories in the ,state1 compels the lower man to registration1 to a tax1 and the rest of it1 and further compels the upper man to be the instrument in enforcing that registration and in collecting that tax4 ,no one acquainted with the way in which any one of the great changes of the past has taken place1 the substitution of tenure for the ,roman proprietary right in land1 or the substitution of the mediaeval peasant for the serf of the ,dark ,ages1 can possibly misunderstand the significance of such a turning point in our history4 ,whether it will be completed or whether a reaction will destroy it is another matter4 ,its mere proposal is of the greatest possible moment in the inquiry we are here pursuing4 ,of the next two groups1 the fixing of a ,minimum ,wage and the ,compulsion to ,labour 7which1 as ,i have said1 and will shortly show1 are complementary one to the other71 neither has yet appeared in actual legislation1 but both are planned1 both thought out1 both possessed of powerful advocates1 and both upon the threshold of positive law4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the fixing of a ,minimum ,wage1 with a definite sum fixed by statute1 has not yet entered our laws1 but the first step towards such a consummation has been taken in the shape of giving legal sanction to some hypothetical ,minimum ,wage which shall be arrived at after discussion within a particular trade4 ,that trade is1 of course1 the mining industry4 ,the law does not say3 ,no ,capitalist shall pay a miner less than so many shillings for so many hours' work4 ,but it does say3 ,figures having been arrived at by local boards1 any miner working within the area of each board can claim by force of law the minimum sum established by such boards4 ,it is evident that from this step to the next1 which shall define some sliding scale of remuneration for labour according to prices and the profits of capital1 is an easy and natural transition4 ,it would give both parties what each immediately requires3 to capital a guarantee against disturbance2 to labour sufficiency and security4 ,the whole thing is an excellent object lesson in little of that general movement from free contract to status1 and from the ,capitalist to the ,servile ,state1 which is the tide of our time4 ,the neglect of older principles as abstract and doctrinaire2 the immediate need of both parties immediately satisfied2 the unforeseen but necessary consequence of satisfying such needs in such a fashion--all these1 which are apparent in the settlement the mining industry has begun1 are the typical forces producing the ,servile ,state4 ,consider in its largest aspect the nature of such a settlement4 ,the ,proletarian accepts a position in which he produces for the ,capitalist a certain total of economic values1 and retains out of that total a portion only1 leaving to the ,capitalist all surplus value4 ,the ,capitalist1 on his side1 is guaranteed in the secure and permanent expectation of that surplus value through all the perils of social envy2 the ,proletarian is guaranteed in a sufficiency and a security for that sufficiency2 but by the very action of such a guarantee there is withdrawn from him the power to refuse his labour and thus to aim at putting himself in possession of the means of production4 ,such schemes definitely divide citizens into two classes1 the ,capitalist and the ,proletarian4 ,they make it impossible for the second to combat the privileged position of the first4 ,they introduce into the positive laws of the community a recognition of social facts which already divide ,englishmen into two groups of economically more free and economically less free1 and they stamp with the authority of the ,state a new constitution of society4 ,society is recognised as no longer consisting of free men bargaining freely for their labour or any other commodity in their possession1 but of two contrasting status1 owners and non-owners4 ,the first must not be allowed to leave the second without subsistence2 the second must not be allowed to obtain that grip upon the means of production which is the privilege of the first4 ,it is true that this first experiment is small in degree and tentative in quality2 but to judge the movement as a general whole we must not only consider the expression it has actually received so far in positive law1 but the mood of our time4 ,when this first experiment in a minimum wage was being debated in ,parliament1 what was the great issue of debate8 ,upon what did those who were the most ardent reformers particularly insist8 ,not that the miners should have an avenue open to them for obtaining possession of the mines2 not even that the ,state should have an avenue open to it for obtaining such possession2 but that the minimum wage should be fixed at a certain satisfactory level6 ,that1 as our recent experience testifies for all of us1 was the crux of the quarrel4 ,and that such a point should be the crux1 not the socialisation of the mines1 nor the admission of the proletariat to the means of production1 but only a sufficiency and a security of wage1 is amply significant of the perhaps irresistible forces which are making in the direction for which ,i argue in this book4 ,there was here no attempt of the ,capitalist to impose ,servile conditions nor of the ,proletarian to resist them4 ,both parties were agreed upon that fundamental change4 ,the discussion turned upon the minimum limit of subsistence to be securely provided1 a point which left aside1 because it took for granted1 the establishment of some minimum in any case4 ,next1 let it be noted 7for it is of moment to a later part of my argument7 that experiments of this sort promise to extend piecemeal4 ,there is no likelihood1 judging by men's actions and speech1 of some grand general scheme for the establishment of a minimum wage throughout the community4 ,such a scheme would1 of course1 be as truly an establishment of the ,servile ,state as piecemeal schemes4 ,but1 as we shall see in a moment1 the extension of the principle piecemeal has a considerable effect upon the forms which compulsion may take4 ,the miners' refusal to work1 with the exaggerated panic it caused1 bred this first tentative appearance of the minimum wage in our laws4 ,normally1 capital prefers free labour with its margin of destitution2 for such an anarchy1 ephemeral though it is of its nature1 while it lasts provides cheap labour2 from the narrowest point of view it provides in the still competitive areas of ,capitalism a better chance for profits4 ,but as one group of workmen after another1 concerned with trades immediately necessary to the life of the nation1 and therefore tolerating but little interruption1 learn the power which combination gives them1 it is inevitable that the legislator 7concentrated as he is upon momentary remedies for difficulties as they arise7 should propose for one such trade after another the remedy of a minimum wage4 ,there can be little doubt that1 trade by trade1 the principle will extend4 ,for instance1 the two and a half millions now guaranteed against unemployment are guaranteed against it for a certain weekly sum4 ,that weekly sum must bear some relation to their estimated earnings when they are in employment4 ,it is a short step from the calculation of unemployment benefit 7its being fixed by statute at a certain level1 and that level determined by something which is regarded as the just remuneration of labour in that trade72 it is a short step1 ,i say1 from that to a statutory fixing of the sums paid during employment4 ,the ,state says to the ,serf3 ,i saw to it that you should have so much when you were unemployed4 ,i find that in some rare cases my arrangement leads to your getting more when you are unemployed than when you are employed4 ,i further find that in many cases1 though you get more when you are employed1 yet the difference is not sufficient to tempt a lazy man to work1 or to make him take any particular trouble to get work4 ,i must see to this4 ,the provision of a fixed schedule during unemployment thus inevitably leads to the examination1 the defining1 and at last the imposition of a minimum wage during employment2 and every compulsory provision for unemployed benefits is the seed of a minimum wage4 ,of still greater effect is the mere presence of ,state regulation in such a matter4 ,the fact that the ,state has begun to gather statistics of wages over these large areas of industry1 and to do so not for a mere statistical object1 but a practical one1 and the fact that the ,state has begun to immix the action of positive law and constraint with the older system of free bargaining1 mean that the whole weight of its influence is now in favour of regulation4 ,it is no rash prophecy to assert that in the near future our industrial society will see a gradually extending area of industry in which from two sides the fixing of wages by statute shall appear4 ,from the one side it will come in the form of the ,state examining the conditions of labour in connection with its own schemes for establishing sufficiency and security by insurance4 ,from the other side it will come through the reasonable proposals to make contracts between groups of labour and groups of capital enforceable in the ,courts4 99 99 99 99 99 ,so much1 then1 for the ,principle of a ,minimum ,wage4 ,it has already appeared in our laws4 ,it is certain to spread4 ,but how does the presence of this introduction of a ,minimum form part of the advance towards the ,servile ,state8 ,i have said that the principle of a minimum wage involves as its converse the principle of compulsory labour4 ,indeed1 most of the importance which the principle of a minimum wage has for this inquiry lies in that converse necessity of compulsory labour which it involves4 ,but as the connection between the two may not be clear at first sight1 we must do more than take it for granted4 ,we must establish it by process of reason4 ,there are two distinct forms in which the whole policy of enforcing security and sufficiency by law for the proletariat produce a corresponding policy of compulsory labour4 ,the first of these forms is the compulsion which the ,courts will exercise upon either of the parties concerned in the giving and in the receiving of the minimum wage4 ,the second form is the necessity under which society will find itself1 when once the principle of the minimum wage is conceded1 coupled with the principle of sufficiency and security1 to maintain those whom the minimum wage excludes from the area of normal employment4 ,as to the first form3-- ,a ,proletarian group has struck a bargain with a group of ,capitalists to the effect that it will produce for that capital ten measures of value in a year1 will be content to receive six measures of value for itself1 and will leave four measures as surplus value for the ,capitalists4 ,the bargain is ratified2 the ,courts have the power to enforce it4 ,if the ,capitalists by some trick of fines or by bluntly breaking their word pay out in wages less than the six measures1 the ,courts must have some power of constraining them4 ,in other words1 there must be some sanction to the action of the law4 ,there must be some power of punishment1 and1 through punishment1 of compulsion4 ,conversely1 if the men1 having struck this bargain1 go back upon their word2 if individuals among them or sections among them cease work with a new demand for seven measures instead of six1 the ,courts must have the power of constraining and of punishing them4 ,where the bargain is ephemeral or at any rate extended over only reasonable limits of time1 it would be straining language perhaps to say that each individual case of constraint exercised against the workmen would be a case of compulsory labour4 ,but extend the system over a long period of years1 make it normal to industry and accepted as a habit in men's daily conception of the way in which their lives should be conducted1 and the method is necessarily transformed into a system of compulsory labour4 ,in trades where wages fluctuate little this will obviously be the case4 ,you1 the agricultural labourers of this district1 have taken fifteen shillings a week for a very long time4 ,it has worked perfectly well4 ,there seems no reason why you should have more4 ,nay1 you put your hands to it through your officials in the year so and so that you regarded that sum as sufficient4 ,such and such of your members are now refusing to perform what this ,court regards as a contract4 ,they must return within the limits of that contract or suffer the consequences4 ,remember what power analogy exercises over men's minds1 and how1 when systems of the sort are common to many trades1 they will tend to create a general point of view for all trades4 ,remember also how comparatively slight a threat is already sufficient to control men in our industrial society1 the proletarian mass of which is accustomed to live from week to week under peril of discharge1 and has grown readily amenable to the threat of any reduction in those wages upon which it can but just subsist4 ,nor are the ,courts enforcing such contracts or quasi-contracts 7as they will come to be regarded7 the only inducement4 ,a man has been compelled by law to put aside sums from his wages as insurance against unemployment4 ,but he is no longer the judge of how such sums shall be used4 ,they are not in his possession2 they are not even in the hands of some society which he can really control4 ,they are in the hands of a ,government official4 ,here is work offered you at twenty-five shillings a week4 ,if you do not take it you certainly shall not have a right to the money you have been compelled to put aside4 ,if you will take it the sum shall still stand to your credit1 and when next in my judgment your unemployment is not due to your recalcitrance and refusal to labour1 ,i will permit you to have some of your money3 not otherwise4 ,dovetailing in with this machinery of compulsion is all that mass of registration and docketing which is accumulating through the use of ,labour ,exchanges4 ,not only will the ,official have the power to enforce special contracts1 or the power to coerce individual men to labour under the threat of a fine1 but he will also have a series of dossiers by which the record of each workman can be established4 ,no man1 once so registered and known1 can escape2 and1 of the nature of the system1 the numbers caught in the net must steadily increase until the whole mass of labour is mapped out and controlled4 ,these are very powerful instruments of compulsion indeed4 ,they already exist4 ,they are already a part of our laws4 ,lastly1 there is the obvious bludgeon of compulsory arbitration3 a bludgeon so obvious that it is revolting even to our proletariat4 ,indeed1 ,i know of no civilised ,european state which has succumbed to so gross a suggestion4 ,for it is a frank admission of servitude at one step1 and for good and all1 such as men of our culture are not yet prepared to swallow4#aa ,so much1 then1 for the first argument and the first form in which compulsory labour is seen to be a direct and necessary consequence of establishing a minimum wage and of scheduling employment to a scale4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the second is equally clear4 ,in the production of wheat the healthy and skilled man who can produce ten measures of wheat is compelled to work for six measures1 and the ,capitalist is compelled to remain content with four measures for his share4 ,the law will punish him if he tries to get out of his legal obligation and to pay his workmen less than six measures of wheat during the year4 ,what of the man who is not sufficiently strong or skilled to produce even six measures8 ,will the ,capitalist be constrained to pay him more than the values he can produce8 ,most certainly not4 ,the whole structure of production as it was erected during the ,capitalist phase of our industry has been left intact by the new laws and customs4 ,profit is still left a necessity4 ,if it were destroyed1 still more if a loss were imposed by law1 that would be a contradiction of the whole spirit in which all these reforms are being undertaken4 ,they are being undertaken with the object of establishing stability where there is now instability1 and of reconciling1 as the ironic phrase goes1 the interests of capital and labour4 ,it would be impossible1 without a general ruin1 to compel capital to lose upon the man who is not worth even the minimum wage4 ,how shall that element of insecurity and instability be eliminated8 ,to support the man gratuitously because he cannot earn a minimum wage1 when all the rest of the commonwealth is working for its guaranteed wages1 is to put a premium upon incapacity and sloth4 ,the man must be made to work4 ,he must be taught1 if possible1 to produce those economic values1 which are regarded as the minimum of sufficiency4 ,he must be kept at that work even if he cannot produce the minimum1 lest his presence as a free labourer should imperil the whole scheme of the minimum wage1 and introduce at the same time a continuous element of instability4 ,hence he is necessarily a subject for forced labour4 ,we have not yet in this country1 established by force of law1 the right to this form of compulsion1 but it is an inevitable consequence of those other reforms which have just been reviewed4 ,the ,labour ,colony 7a prison so called because euphemism is necessary to every transition7 will be erected to absorb this surplus1 and that last form of compulsion will crown the edifice of these reforms4 ,they will then be complete so far as the subject classes are concerned1 and even though this particular institution of the ,labour ,colony 7logically the last of all7 precede in time other forms of compulsion1 it will make the advent of those other forms of compulsion more certain1 facile1 and rapid4 99 99 99 99 99 ,there remains one last remark to be made upon the concrete side of my subject4 ,i have in this last section illustrated the tendency towards the ,servile ,state from actual laws and actual projects with which all are to-day familiar in ,english industrial society1 and ,i have shown how these are certainly establishing the proletariat in a novel1 but to them satisfactory1 ,servile ,status4 ,it remains to point out in a very few lines the complementary truth that what should be the very essence of ,collectivist ,reform1 to wit1 the translation of the means of production from the hands of private owners to the hands of public officials1 is nowhere being attempted4 ,so far from its being attempted1 all so-called ,socialistic experiments in municipalisation and nationalisation are merely increasing the dependence of the community upon the ,capitalist class4 ,to prove this1 we need only observe that every single one of these experiments is effected by a loan4 ,now what is meant in economic reality by these municipal loans and national loans raised for the purpose of purchasing certain small sections of the means of production8 ,certain ,capitalists own a number of rails1 cars1 etc4 ,they put to work upon these certain ,proletarians1 and the result is a certain total of economic values4 ,let the surplus values obtainable by the ,capitalists after the subsistence of the proletarians is provided for amount to #aj1jjj a year4 ,we all know how a system of this sort is ,municipalised4 ,a loan is raised4 ,it bears interest4 ,it is saddled with a sinking fund4 ,now this loan is not really made in money1 though the terms of it are in money4 ,it is1 at the end of a long string of exchanges1 nothing more nor less than the loan of the cars1 the rails1 etc41 by the ,capitalists to the ,municipality4 ,and the ,capitalists require1 before they will strike the bargain1 a guarantee that the whole of their old profit shall be paid to them1 together with a further yearly sum1 which after a certain number of years shall represent the original value of the concern when they handed it over4 ,these last additional sums are called the sinking fund2 the continued payment of the old surplus values is called the interest4 ,in theory certain small sections of the means of production might be acquired in this way4 ,that particular section would have been socialised4 ,the ,sinking ,fund 7that is1 the paying of the ,capitalists for their plant by instalments7 might be met out of the general taxation imposed on the community1 considering how large that is compared with any one experiment of the kind4 ,the interest may by good management be met out of the true profits of the tramways4 ,at the end of a certain number of years the community will be in possession of the tramways1 will no longer be exploited in this particular by ,capitalism1 will have bought out ,capitalism from the general taxes1 and1 in so far as the purchase money paid has been consumed and not saved or invested by the ,capitalists1 a small measure of socialisation will have been achieved4 ,as a fact things are never so favourable4 ,in practice three conditions militate against even these tiny experiments in expropriation3 the fact that the implements are always sold at much more than their true value2 the fact that the purchase includes non-productive things2 and the fact that the rate of borrowing is much faster than the rate of repayment4 ,these three adverse conditions lead in practice to nothing but the riveting of ,capitalism more securely round the body of the ,state4 ,for what is it that is paid for when a tramway1 for instance1 is taken over8 ,is it the true capital alone1 the actual plant1 which is paid for1 even at an exaggerated price8 ,far from it6 ,over and above the rails and the cars1 there are all the commissions that have been made1 all the champagne luncheons1 all the lawyers' fees1 all the compensations to this man and to that man1 all the bribes4 ,nor does this exhaust the argument4 ,tramways represent a productive investment4 ,what about pleasure gardens1 wash-houses1 baths1 libraries1 monuments1 and the rest8 ,the greater part of these things are the product of loans4 ,when you put up a public institution you borrow the bricks and the mortar and the iron and the wood and the tiles from ,capitalists1 and you pledge yourself to pay interest1 and to produce a sinking fund precisely as though a town hall or a bath were a piece of reproductive machinery4 ,to this must be added the fact that a considerable proportion of the purchases are failures3 purchases of things just before they are driven out by some new invention2 while on the top of the whole business you have the fact that the borrowing goes on at a far greater rate than the repayment4 ,in a word1 all these experiments up and down ,europe during our generation1 municipal and national1 have resulted in an indebtedness to capital increasing rather more than twice1 but not three times1 as fast as the rate of repayment4 ,the interest which capital demands with a complete indifference as to whether the loan is productive or non-productive amounts to rather more than #a #a_/b per cent4 excess over the produce of the various experiments1 even though we count in the most lucrative and successful of these1 such as the state railways of many countries1 and the thoroughly successful municipal enterprises of many modern towns4 ,capitalism has seen to it that it shall be a winner and not a loser by this form of sham ,socialism1 as by every other4 ,and the same forces which in practice forbid confiscation see to it that the attempt to mask confiscation by purchase shall not only fail1 but shall turn against those who have not had the courage to make a frontal attack upon privilege4 99 99 99 99 99 ,with these concrete examples showing how ,collectivism1 in attempting its practice1 does but confirm the ,capitalist position1 and showing how our laws have already begun to impose a ,servile ,status upon the ,proletariat1 ,i end the argumentative thesis of this book4 ,i believe ,i have proved my case4 ,the future of industrial society1 and in particular of ,english society1 left to its own direction1 is a future in which subsistence and security shall be guaranteed for the ,proletariat1 but shall be guaranteed at the expense of the old political freedom and by the establishment of that ,proletariat in a status really1 though not nominally1 servile4 ,at the same time1 the ,owners will be guaranteed in their profits1 the whole machinery of production in the smoothness of its working1 and that stability which has been lost under the ,capitalist phase of society will be found once more4 ,the internal strains which have threatened society during its ,capitalist phase will be relaxed and eliminated1 and the community will settle down upon that ,servile basis which was its foundation before the advent of the ,christian faith1 from which that faith slowly weaned it1 and to which in the decay of that faith it naturally returns4 ,conclusion ,it is possible to portray a great social movement of the past with accuracy and in detail if one can spare to the task the time necessary for research and further bring to it a certain power of co-ordination by which a great mass of detail can be integrated and made one whole4 ,such a task is rarely accomplished1 but it does not exceed the powers of history4 ,with regard to the future it is otherwise4 ,no one can say even in its largest aspect or upon its chief structural line what that future will be4 ,he can only present the main tendencies of his time3 he can only determine the equation of the curve and presume that that equation will apply more or less to its next developments4 ,so far as ,i can judge1 those societies which broke with the continuity of ,christian civilisation in the sixteenth century--which means1 roughly1 ,north ,germany and ,great ,britain--tend at present to the re-establishment of a ,servile ,status4 ,it will be diversified by local accident1 modified by local character1 hidden under many forms4 ,but it will come4 ,that the mere ,capitalist anarchy cannot endure is patent to all men4 ,that only a very few possible solutions to it exist should be equally patent to all4 ,for my part1 as ,i have said in these pages1 ,i do not believe there are more than two3 a reaction towards well-divided property1 or the re-establishment of servitude4 ,i cannot believe that theoretical ,collectivism1 now so plainly failing1 will ever inform a real and living society4 ,but my conviction that the re-establishment of the ,servile ,status in industrial society is actually upon us does not lead me to any meagre and mechanical prophecy of what the future of ,europe shall be4 ,the force of which ,i have been speaking is not the only force in the field4 ,there is a complex knot of forces underlying any nation once ,christian2 a smouldering of the old fires4 ,moreover1 one can point to ,european societies which will most certainly reject any such solution of our ,capitalist problem1 just as the same societies have either rejected1 or lived suspicious of1 ,capitalism itself1 and have rejected or lived suspicious of that industrial organisation which till lately identified itself with progress and national well-being4 ,these societies are in the main the same as those which1 in that great storm of the sixteenth century1--the capital episode in the story of ,christendom--held fast to tradition and saved the continuity of morals4 ,chief among them should be noted to-day the ,french and the ,irish4 ,i would record it as an impression and no more that the ,servile ,state1 strong as the tide is making for it in ,prussia and in ,england to-day1 will be modified1 checked1 perhaps defeated in war1 certainly halted in its attempt to establish itself completely1 by the strong reaction which these freer societies upon its flank will perpetually exercise4 ,ireland has decided for a free peasantry1 and our generation has seen the solid foundation of that institution laid4 ,in ,france the many experiments which elsewhere have successfully introduced the ,servile ,state have been contemptuously rejected by the populace1 and 7most significant67 a recent attempt to register and to insure the artisans as a separate category of citizens has broken down in the face of an universal and a virile contempt4 ,that this second factor in the development of the future1 the presence of free societies1 will destroy the tendency to the ,servile ,state elsewhere ,i do not affirm1 but ,i believe that it will modify that tendency1 certainly by example and perhaps by direct attack4 ,and as ,i am upon the whole hopeful that the ,faith will recover its intimate and guiding place in the heart of ,europe1 so ,i believe that this sinking back into our original ,paganism 7for the tendency to the ,servile ,state is nothing less7 will in due time be halted and reversed4 ,videat ,deus4 ,endnotes #a ,save in this special sense of ,collectivist1 the word ,socialist has either no clear meaning1 or is used synonymously with other older and better-known words4 #b ,the purchasing power of money fell during this century to about a third of its original standard4 #c 7say7 would purchase under ,charles ,i the necessities which #a would have purchased under ,henry ,,viii4 ,nearly all the receipts of the ,crown were customary4 ,most of its expenses were competitive4 ,it continued to get but #a where it was gradually compelled to pay out #c4 #c ,before any trust is established in this country1 the first step is to interest one of our politicians4 ,the ,telephones1 the ,south ,wales ,coal ,trust1 the happily defeated ,soap ,trust1 the ,soda1 ,fish1 and ,fruit ,trusts1 are examples in point4 #d ,by which word property is meant1 of course1 property in the means of ,production4 #e ,that this is an illusion ,i shall attempt to show on a later page4 #f ,by an illusion which clever statesmanship could use to the advantage of the community1 he even estimates the natural forces he controls 7which need no accumulation1 but are always present7 on the analogy of his capital1 and will part with them at so many years' purchase4 ,it is by taking advantage of this illusion that land purchase schemes 7as in ,ireland7 happily work to the advantage of the dispossessed4 #g ,thus you can raid the brewers in a society half-,puritan where brewing is thought immoral by many1 but proceed to railway stock and it will be a very different matter4 #h ,in using this metaphor ,i at once record my apologies to those who believe in elliptical and hyperbolic universes1 and confess myself an old-fashioned parabolist4 ,further1 ,i admit that the triangles in question are spherical4 #i ,thus the money levied upon the death of some not very wealthy squire and represented by1 say1 locomotives in the ,argentine1 turns into two miles of palings for the pleasant back gardens of a thousand new officials under the ,inebriates ,bill1 or is simply handed over to the shareholders of the ,prudential under the ,insurance ,act4 ,in the first case the locomotives have been given back to the ,argentine1 and after a long series of exchanges have been bartered against a great number of wood-palings from the ,baltic not exactly reproductive wealth4 ,in the second case the locomotives which used to be the squire's hands become1 or their equivalent becomes1 means of production in the hands of the ,sassoons4 #aj ,how true it is that the idea of status underlies this legislation can easily be tested by taking parallel cases1 in one of which working men are concerned1 in the other the professional class4 ,if ,i contract to write for a publisher a complete ,history of the ,county of ,rutland1 and in the pursuit of that task1 while examining some object of historical interest1 fall down a pit1 ,i should not be able to recover against the publisher4 ,but if ,i dress in mean clothes1 and the same publisher1 deceived1 gives me a month's work at cleaning out his ornamental water and ,i am wounded in that occupation by a fierce fish1 he will be mulcted to my advantage1 and that roundly4 #aa ,but it has twice been brought forward in due process as a ,bill in ,parliament6