It is only a lamentable issue of our perverse pre-scientific system that millions must lack the food and clothing and luxuries which they themselves could and would, under a more orderly system, produce.
This implies, of course, the transfer to the community, at a just payment, of the land, the mines, and the means of transit, and the gradual extension of municipal enterprise to productive and distributive industries. I am contending only for principles, and would refer the closer inquirer to such detailed constructive works as those of Mr. H. G. Wells. It would be futile to construct a rigid scheme of collectivist organisation. Such industries as the press, literature, art, etc., present difficulties which it would be foolish to override. But these affect comparatively few workers, and it is pedantry of an unintelligent kind to wrangle over them while we have a clear case in regard to other industries which involve many millions of workers. We would do well, however, to remember that the middle-class industries themselves are overcrowded and chaotic, and that most members of that class would gain by organisation, wherever it is possible. Instead of shrinking from it and inventing difficulties, we ought to be eager to discover its possibilities.
I ignore also certain more or less academic objections which have been made against this proposal to organise employment. Mill’s essay On Liberty is a monument of the futility of this kind of reasoning.
