Chapter VI., Sec. 3. It is a
direct inversion of current Socialist teaching.

Sec. 3.

_Socialism would open the way to vast public corruption._ This is
flatly opposed to the experience of America, where local
administration has been as little Socialistic and as corrupt as
anywhere in the world. Obviously in order that a public official
should be bribed, there must be some wealthy person outside the system
to bribe him and with an interest in bribing him. When you have a weak
administration with feeble powers and resources and strong
unscrupulous private corporations seeking to override the law and
public welfare, the possibilities of bribing are at the highest point.
In a community given over to the pursuit of gain, powerful private
enterprises will resort to corruption to get and protract franchises,
to evade penalties, to postpone expropriation, and they will do it
systematically and successfully. And even where there is partial
public enterprise and a competition among contractors, there will
certainly be, at least, attempts at corruption to get contracts. But
where the whole process is in public hands, where can the bribery
creep in; who is going to find the money for the bribes, and why?

It is urged that in another direction there is likely to be a
corruption of public life due to the organized voting of the
_employes_ in this branch of the public service or that, seeking some
advantage for their own service. This is Lord Avebury's bogey.[16]
Frankly, such voting by services is highly probable. The tramway men
or the milk-service men may think they are getting too long hours or
too low pay in comparison with the teachers or men on the ocean
liners, and the thing may affect elections. That is only human nature,
and the point to bear in mind is that this sort of thing goes on
to-day, and goes on with a vigour out of all proportion to the mild
possibilities of a Socialist _regime_. The landowners of Great
Britain, for example, are organized in the most formidable manner
against the general interests of the community, and constantly
subordinate the interests of the common-weal to their conception of
justice to their class; the big railways are equally potent, and so
are the legal profession and the brewers. But to-day these political
interventions of great organized services athwart the path of
statesmanship are sustained by enormous financial resources. The State
_employes_ under Socialism will be in the posi