far in ordinary times. Secondly, high taxation for the maintenance of Communist undertakings discourages enterprise and the accumulation of wealth. Thirdly, there is a chronic danger of the Communistic principle being mispplied. There is, for instance, no special reason for supposing that people's expenditure on travelling by tram is less than it ought to be in comparison with their expenditure on other things, and no particular justification therefore for running a municipal tramway system at a loss; yet this sort of thing is very liable to occur.

The merits and dangers of partial Communism are well exemplified in the policy of State provision of housing for the working classes. Here is a service of which the consumers are poor, and in the purchase of which they are peculiarly apt to neglect their own interests, to the prejudice of themselves, of their neighbors and of posterity (for a jerry-built house, unlike a jerry-built pair of boots, is an incubus on succeeding generations): thus the arguments for Communistic enterprise are very strong. On the other hand, a Communistic policy to be successful must be very comprehensive, for the competition of taxfed Government building will make private enterprise impossible; and a comprehensive policy will be enormously expensive. It is not surprising that in Great Britain the result of these conflicting considerations has been vacillation and confusion.

A system of complete Communism implies, of course, a complete rejection of the mechanism of price and exchange. In an infinitely wealthy society everybody would no doubt be allowed to take out of the State's storehouses as much of everything as they

wanted: but in a society of limited wealth, such as those we know on earth, the State would have to ration the consumption of individuals in every particular, and to arrange the flow of productive resources into the several industries in such a manner as to produce continuously the standard budget for the whole population, a budget which many individuals would certainly find inappropriate and distasteful. It appears to have been nothing less than this gigantic task which was envisaged by the Communist Government of Russia in its "orthodox" period, though the vision was never completely translated into actuality. But it seems evident that in the strict sense Russia is Communist no longer, even in theory, and is settling down instead to a regime of highly centralized Collectivism, conducted according to the ordinary methods of accountancy, in the leading industries-textiles, transport, iron and steel and so forth-coupled with small-scale private enterprise in agriculture, and more or less strictly regulated Capitalism in the other departments of economic life. The Russian experiment involved so many different kinds of change and was conducted under such peculiar conditions that it is dangerous to draw detailed inferences from it on particular points; but it certainly suggests that even among a population with simple and uniform needs the wholesale administration of industry by the State, difficult enough in any case, becomes an impossible task if the touchstone of price in relation to cost of production is cast to the winds.

CHAPTER X

WORKERS' CONTROL

"I'll tell you how I came to think of it," said the Knight. "You see, I said to myself, "The only difficulty is with the feet: the head is high enough already.' Now, first I put my head on the top of the gate-then the head's high enough -then I stand on my head-then the feet are high enough, you see-then I'm over, you see."

"Yes, I suppose you'd be over when that was done," Alice said thoughtfully; "but don't you think it would be rather hard?"

"I haven't tried it yet," the Knight said gravely: "so I can't tell for certain—but I'm afraid it would be a little hard."

Through the Looking-glass.

§ 40. Productive Co-operation. Neither Consumers' Cooperation nor Collectivism nor Communism solves the problem of the status of the worker raised in Ch. VII, §4: and since all of them must, under modern conditions, work within the framework of the "factory system" of Capitalism considered as a technical method of production and not as a system of property rights and industrial government-the fact is not surprising. Dreamers of dreams have, indeed, suggested from time to time that we should scrap the factory and the machine, and become again a community of independent craftsmen. Readers of Samuel Butler's Erewhon will remember how that imaginary nation, alarmed at the growing wisdom and power and

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voracity of the machines, finally decided to destroy all those which had been invented in the last 271 years, "a period which was agreed upon by all parties after several years of wrangling as to whether a certain kind of mangle which was much in use among washerwomen should be saved or no. It was at last ruled to be dangerous, and was just excluded by the limit of 271 years." But the common sense of mankind outside Erewhon has generally decided that this course is impracticable; and the efforts of reformers have been directed to trying to find some method of combining the subordination and regimentation necessitated by the factory system with the exercise of selfgovernment by those who are entangled in its coils.

It was on this aspect of social reconstruction that the early French and English Socialists laid most stress, and the 'twenties and 'thirties were prolific in schemes for self-governing workshops and communities. Then in most countries these rather fragile projects were submerged beneath the rising tide of Collectivism, to reappear in the twentieth century, and especially in the great social upheaval of 1917-20, in a more militant and imposing form. Of late years the consumer has become suspect, for he may be a mere drone, living on rent and profits, and so not entitled to consideration: the State has become suspect, for it is a tyrannous organ that makes wars and brews lies and destroys freedom. It is the worker qua worker who must rule.

In following out the development of this line of thought and experiment we must glance first at the humble relics of the co-operative enthusiasm of the 'thirties. Most of those early "workers' societies" were short-lived, but there have been occasional

revivals of the movement, and there are in Great Britain at present about seventy such establishments -mainly in the boot, clothing, textile and printing trades at any rate partially owned and directed by those who work in them. But the genuine productive society has obvious difficulties to face. There is difficulty in obtaining enough capital for extensions of business or even for current needs, and in securing and retaining markets. But the greatest difficulty is the question of management: it is not easy to bring oneself to vote for the most capable man among one's shopmates as manager, rather than the best talker or the best fellow, nor to vote him a large enough salary, nor to allow him a free enough hand when elected and to obey his orders in the shop. Hence not many of these societies have remained true to the early ideals of the movement. In many of them a large part of the membership and the capital holding lies outside the factory (sometimes partly in the hands of the Cooperative Stores), and within the factory there are many employees who are not members of the society; and in only about a third of them do employees constitute a majority on the managing committees, while in some they are definitely excluded from sitting thereon.

Thus "Productive Co-operation" has not revolutionized industry, nor is it likely to do so. The main stream, not only of Capitalism, but of Co-operation and of Socialism, has swept past these gallant little craft; but in their limited sphere they have a vitality and an experimental value of their own.

§ 2. Syndicalism and Sovietism.

It seems a far cry

from these peaceful little cells of industry to the red