o adults).
Let us assume, moreover, that the "trusts," including railways, public
service corporations, banks, mines, oil, and lumber interests, the
steel-making and meat-packing industries, and the few other important
businesses where monopolies are established, were owned and operated by
governments of this character. Taken together with the social and labor
reforms that would accompany such a regime, this would be "State
Socialism," but it would not _necessarily_ constitute even a _step
towards_ Socialism--and this for two reasons.

The industries mentioned employ probably less than a third of the
population, and, even if we add other government employments, the total
would be little more than a third. The majority of the community would
still be divided among the owners or employees of the competitive
manufacturing establishments, stores, farms, etc.,--and the professional
classes. With most of these the struggle of Capital and Labor would
continue and, since they are in a majority, would be carried over into
the field of government, setting the higher paid against the more poorly
paid employees, as in the Prussia of to-day.

And, secondly, even if we supposed that a considerable part or all of
the government employees received what they felt to be, on the whole, a
fair treatment from the government, and if these, together with
shopkeepers, farm owners, or lessees, and satisfied professional and
salaried men, made up a majority, we would still be as far as ever from
a social, economic, or industrial democracy. What we would have would be
a class society, based on a purely political democracy, and
economically, on a partly private (or individualist) and partly public
(or collectivist) capitalism.

"Equal opportunities for all" would also mean Socialism. But equal
opportunities for a limited number, no matter if that number be much
larger than at present, may merely strengthen capitalism by drawing the
more able of the workers away from their class and into the service of
capitalism. Or opportunities _more_ equal for all, without a complete
equalization, may merely increase the competition of the lower classes
for middle-class positions and so secure to the capitalists cheaper
professional service. So-called steps towards equal opportunities, even
if rapid enough to produce a very large surplus of trained applicants
for whom capitalism fails to provide and so increase the army of
malcontents, may simply delay the d