Socialism but of Anarchism."[1242] "Everyone
should have a legal right to an opportunity of earning his living in
the society in which he has been born; but no one should or could have
the right to ask that he shall be employed at the particular job which
suits his peculiar taste and temperament. Each of us must be prepared
to do the work which society wants doing, or take the consequences of
refusal."[1243] And what consequences would refusal to do the allotted
work at the allotted pay entail? Either dismissal, which would mean
starvation--for the State, as the sole employer, would control all
employment and all the food--or bodily chastisement, or imprisonment.
There could be no strike on the part of dissatisfied workers, for the
State--that is, the officials--holding all the wealth, would be able
to starve them out in a week.

Socialists admit: "Mankind is as lazy as it dares to be."[1244] "In
the average man there is a strong tendency to mere idleness and
aimlessness which, but for the compulsions and temptations of
existing circumstances, might run to great lengths. The trouble is
that, while the average man is willing to work occasionally where his
choice is free, he considers his lot a hard one if necessity compels
him to continue regularly at a given task. He is willing to work at
almost anything save that at which he is asked to work. It is a common
thing to hear even good workmen profess a dislike to their
trade."[1245]

How will shirking and idling be prevented in the Socialist
Commonwealth when men are no longer compelled by economic necessity
and free competition to do their best?

The leading American exponent of Socialism prophesies that workers
will work no longer in order to live in comfort, but that they will
henceforth see in work a semi-religious duty, which they perform owing
to their strong sense of beneficence: "In the New Commonwealth the
butcher will be conscious and satisfied that 'the essential thing is
not that he shall have a living, but that meat shall be supplied.' The
work of the citizen will be the willing performance of social office.
He will be a worker whose best efforts, best ardour, and highest aims
will be drawn out by his sense of the beneficence of his work, even
though it be such a coarse routine of manual labour as machinery
should soon remove altogether from human hands. He will be habituated
to regard his wages, not as a _quid pro quo_, but as the provision
made by societ