e
optional whether a man does a whole day's work for a whole day's pay,
or half a day's work for half a day's pay, except in cases where such
an arrangement would cause practical inconvenience. A man's pay
should not cease through the accident of his work being no longer
needed, but should continue so long as he is willing to work, a new
trade being taught him at the public expense, if necessary.
Unwillingness to work should be treated medically or educationally,
when it could not be overcome by a change to some more congenial
occupation.

The workers in a given industry should all be combined in one
autonomous unit, and their work should not be subject to any outside
control. The state should fix the price at which they produce, but
should leave the industry self-governing in all other respects. In
fixing prices, the state should, as far as possible, allow each
industry to profit by any improvements which it might introduce into
its own processes, but should endeavor to prevent undeserved loss or
gain through changes in external economic conditions. In this way
there would be every incentive to progress, with the least possible
danger of unmerited destitution. And although large economic
organizations will continue, as they are bound to do, there will be a
diffusion of power which will take away the sense of individual
impotence from which men and women suffer at present.

III

Some men, though they may admit that such a system would be desirable,
will argue that it is impossible to bring it about, and that therefore
we must concentrate on more immediate objects.

I think it must be conceded that a political party ought to have
proximate aims, measures which it hopes to carry in the next session
or the next parliament, as well as a more distant goal. Marxian
socialism, as it existed in Germany, seemed to me to suffer in this
way: although the party was numerically powerful, it was politically
weak, because it had no minor measures to demand while waiting for the
revolution. And when, at last, German socialism was captured by those
who desired a less impracticable policy, the modification which
occurred was of exactly the wrong kind: acquiescence in bad policies,
such as militarism and imperialism, rather than advocacy of partial
reforms which, however inadequate, would still have been steps in the
right direction.

A similar defect was inherent in the policy of French syndicalism as
it existed before t