, nothing has been changed, and all the objections above
mentioned still hold. There is no solution here.

If it were a solution, then the socialist government could not long
remain elective. It would have to reign by divine right, like the
Jesuits in Paraguay. It would have to be a despotism, not only in its
policy but in its origin, in fact a monarchy. No intelligent king has
any inducement to choose incompetent men as his officials. His interest
would lead him to do exactly the opposite. You will say that an
intelligent king is a very rare, even an abnormal thing. I readily
agree. Except in a very few instances, which history records with
amazement, a king has exactly the same reasons as the people for
selecting as his favourites men who will not eclipse nor contradict him,
and who consequently seldom turn out to be the best of citizens either
in respect of intelligence or character. Elective socialism and despotic
socialism have the same faults as democracy as we understand the term.

Besides, in truth, the drift of democracy towards socialism is nothing
but a reversion to despotism. If socialism were established, it would
begin by being elective, and as every elective system lives and breathes
and has its being in the party system, the dominant party would elect
the legislature, consequently it would constitute the Government and
would extort from that Government, simply because it has the power to
extort it, every conceivable form of privilege. Exploitation of the
country by the majority would result, as in every country where elective
government prevails.

A socialist government therefore is primarily an oligarchy of directors
of labour and distributors of subsistence. It is a very close oligarchy,
for those beneath it are quite defenceless, levelled down to an
equality of poverty and misery. It is a form of government very
difficult to replace, for it holds in its hands the threads of such an
intricate organisation that it must be protected against crude attempts
to change it, and so it tends to be a permanent oligarchy. It would
therefore concentrate very quickly round a leader, or at any rate,
relegate to the second rank the national representatives and the
electorate.

Such a course of events would be very similar to what occurred under the
First Empire in France, when the military caste eclipsed and domineered
over everything. It became continuously necessary to the State, and
though that necessity passe