gramme. The
socialistic state, however, having to perform a double
function--namely, that of political governor and universal director of
industry--would necessarily be divided into two distinct bodies. One of
these, consisting of statesmen and legislators, would, we may assume, be
elected by the votes of the people. But the other, consisting of
industrial experts--the inventors, the chemists, the electricians, the
naval engineers, the organisers of labour--might conceivably be in the
first or the second of the two following positions: They might either be
left free, as they are under the existing system, to do severally the
best they can, according to their own lights, in estimating what goods
or services the population wants, and in satisfying these wants with
such increasing economy that new goods and services might be continually
added to the old. They might be left free to promote or dismiss
subordinates, to fill up vacancies, and take new men into partnership,
very much as the heads of private firms do now. Or else they might be
liable, in greater or less degree, to removal or supersession, and
interference with their technical operations, on the part of the
political body, whose members, while representing the general ideas of
the community, would presumably not be experts in the direction of its
particular industries.

Now, let us suppose first that the official directors of labour are left
practically free to follow their own devices. The situation which will
arise may be illustrated by the following imaginary case: The nation,
let us say, requires two sister ships. They are built in different
yards, under two different directors, and a thousand labourers are
employed in the construction of each; but while the labourers who work
under one director take a year to complete their task, those who work
under the other complete theirs within ten months. This would mean for
the community that, through the inferiority of the former of these two
officials, two months' labour of the national shipwrights had been lost;
and the public interest would require that the industrial regiment
commanded by him should as quickly as possible pass out of his control
into that of an official who could render it more efficient than he. And
under the existing system this, as we have seen already, is precisely
what sooner or later would be brought about automatically. The
inefficient director, in proportion to his relative inefficiency,