ency and give the maximum product breaks down. For no matter how
much the condition of the laborers is improved, or what political rights
they are allowed to exercise, if they are deprived of all initiative and
power in their employments, and of the equal opportunity to develop
their capacities to fill other social positions for which they may prove
to be more fit than the present occupants, then the human resources of
the community are not only left underdeveloped, but are prevented from
development.

In the following chapters I shall deal successively with the plans of
the "State Socialists" to develop the productive powers of the laboring
people and their children--_as laborers_, together with the accompanying
tendencies towards compulsory labor, and formation of a class society.

"Our Home policy," says a manifesto of the Fabian Society (edited by
Bernard Shaw), "must include a labor policy, _whether the laborer wants
it or not_, directed to securing _for him, what, for the nation's sake
even the poorest_ of its subjects should have." (Italics mine.)[46]

Here is the basis of the attitude of the "State Socialist" towards
labor. Labor is to be given more and more attention and consideration.
But the governing is to be done by other classes, and the foundation of
the new policy is to be the welfare of society as these other classes
conceive it,--and not the welfare of the masses of the people as
conceived by the masses themselves.

Indeed, a government official has recently pleaded with capital in the
name of labor that the time has come when it pays to treat labor as well
as valuable horses and cattle. George H. Webb, Commissioner of Labor of
Rhode Island, begins his report on Welfare Work by assuring the
manufacturers that it is profitable. He says: "Mankind, at least that
portion of it that has to do with horseflesh, discovered ages ago that a
horse does the best service when it is well fed, well stabled, and well
groomed. The same principle applies to the other brands of farm stock.
They one and all yield the best results when their health and comforts
are best looked after. It is strange, though these truths have been a
matter of general knowledge for centuries, that it is only quite
recently that it has been discovered that the same rule is applicable to
the human race. We are just beginning to learn that the employer who
gives steady employment, pays fair wages, and pays close attention to
the physical healt