in the hands of a bureaucratic committee, as under state socialism, or of a guild or trade union committee, as it would apparently be under guild socialism or syndicalism, then it is perhaps
possible, though highly doubtful, that the objects on which the productive enterprise of the community would be exercised might be more sensible and tasteful; but the general members of
the community, having no power of choice, would not be exercising sense or good taste, but would merely be taking, whether they
liked them or no, goods and services provided by the decision of an outside body.
Advances under Capitalism. A more serious doubt arises whether under any alternative system that has yet been suggested the actual needs and necessities of the community would be suc- cessfully met. We have to admit that under capitalism there has existed and still exists a great deal of destitution and poverty which are serious blots on the success of the system. On the other hand, anybody who takes even a superficial and cursory view of the productive progress of the last century and a half under modern capitalism must admit that an enormous advance has been secured. There is no need here to enumerate all the miraculous inventions by which man's power over nature has been increased, and his productive capacity has been enormously multiplied. The extent of these powers was only fully realized when the World War came, and, in spite of the view expressed by some economists that a modern continental war could not last more than a few months because the economic strain would be too great, it was nevertheless possible to carry the war on for more than four years, to develop the production of lethal weap- ons during its course on a scale which has never heretofore been dreamt of, to feed and clothe the armies in the field much better than armies in the field had been fed and clothed before, and, at the same time, at least in England, to increase the standard of comfort of the greater part of the population. These achieve- ments were in fact only carried out by making drafts to some extent upon the capital resources of the countries engaged, as, for example, when England sold back to the United States her investments in American railway bonds in exchange for food and munitions of war, which she was importing from America. But, when full allowance has been made on this score, the fact remains that the World War demonstrated a growth of pro- ductive capacity which had not been suspected until the supreme test aroused the energies of all the chief nations of the world.
But, apart from this astonishing effort at a time of crisis, we may take the prosaic facts of the last half of the igth century as quoted by acknowledged champions of socialism. Mr. Sidney Webb, in his Industrial Democracy, speaks of " the past fifty years' rise in the condition of the English wage-earning class." Mr. Snowden, in his Socialism and Syndicalism, says that accord- ing to official figures between 1850 and 1900 the wages of the working classes in England had risen by 78 %, and at the same time there had been a fall in the prices of wholesale commodities of 11%. This is surely a wonderful achievement which has to be granted as practical evidence of the efficiency of the capitalistic system, and of the extent to which its benefits were being shared with those who did its manual labour.
Mr. Snowden objected that the prices of wholesale commodities are not the best possible test of the buying power of the wage- earners, and that certain articles which they use had in fact risen. This may be so, but nevertheless the very great advance in actual money wages, accompanied by a quite appreciable reduction in the prices of many articles of general consumption, is a stubborn fact. This, indeed, Mr. Snowden to some extent admits, but he goes on to argue that this progress had stopped at the beginning of the 2oth century, and that the tendency had then become permanent by which the share of the wage-earners in the product of industry was actually going backwards. This was certainly true in the first few years of the century, since the rise in wages, which still continued, did not quite keep pace with the rise in general prices. But Mr. Snowden's contention that this tendency was permanent was merely an assumption which might easily have been proved false even if the war had not hap- pened. As we all remember, the World War came at a time when
the manual workers of England were preparing a great attempt to improve their position, and there is every reason to assume that this attempt would have been successful. In any case, the war came and the general position of labour was certainly improved during its course. Since the war, the struggle between wages and prices to keep up with one another has been somewhat difficult, but it may at least be contended that this has been due not to an essential fault in capitalism, but because the wage-earners thought fit to restrict output in a mistaken belief that they would thereby resist any attempt to force them back to the pre-war standard, which they were rightly determined to avoid.
We have also to remember that under the sway of capitalism this very considerable improvement in the wage-earners' lot has been carried out in spite of an enormous increase in population. If it be admitted that the general standard of life before the World War was not all that it should be, it must also be admitted that the gift of life and all that life involves had been showered upon millions of people in all the economically civilized countries of the world, who could not have come into being if it had not been for the great increase of wealth under capitalism.
Weakness of the Alternatives. One of the strongest arguments in favour of the present capitalistic system is the weakness shown by any system with which its critics would propose to replace it. State socialism has long been before the public as an alternative to the private ownership of capital. If it could be worked its economic advantages would be considerable, because it would mean that the state would own all the means of production and so would be the sole purchaser and the sole organizer and the sole distributor. The state would, therefore, decide what the needs of the community were, and how much work had to be done to provide them, and would set the members of the community to work to provide these things. All the waste involved by com- petition and advertisement would be saved, and all the mistakes in production would be avoided, which now arise because those who organize production have to try to foresee and forestall the needs of the public. The state would say what work each one of us was to do and what goods each one of us was to consume. If it were really possible that under this system we should work as well as we work now, there can be no doubt that the business of supplying the community's needs, as interpreted by the state, would be free from many of the joltings and jarrings which now often put the industrial machinery to some extent out of gear. But, in the first place, there is the enormously important question whether such a system could work at all whether in fact the ordinary human being, as he is to-day, would be prepared to work at the bidding of the state, on conditions laid down by the state, with anything like the enthusiasm and readiness with which people work nowadays with the prospect of securing profit and advantage to themselves. Even if it be true that the great majority of commonplace people, who do not at present work with much enthusiasm or energy because they know that their own chance of achieving striking success is remote, would work for the state as well (or as indifferently) as they work now for private employers, there is very considerable doubt whether the more stirring spirits who think they can see their way to fortune in present circumstances if they work for it with deter- mination, would put anything like the same vigour into work that they did for the state; it is upon the energy and readiness to take risks of this comparatively small body of stirring spirits in the community that economic progress really depends. If we stifle the incentives which now spur them to take risks and try experiments in the hope of fresh opportunities of profit, there is grave danger not only that the economic progress of the community might be checked, but that its whole economic organization might fall into decay and slothfulness, and that any attempt to improve or expand might be met with the same cold and unreceptive stare that now usually greets any new suggestion that comes up before officials of government departments. It might be possible in time to produce a set of officials who would be as ready and eager to promote the economic efficiency of the community as are the present captains of industry stirred by the incentive of profit. But past experience does not show that there
