own them is to suggest what in a large measure is done already.
Turn we now from this great division of industry to that at the other end of the scale, joint stock enterprise. Between these two lie, no doubt, an indeterminate number of concerns partaking of the character of both the others, but these concerns can be ignored for the present purpose, more especially as the two mentioned together cover much of the field. The difference between the two divisions is that, whereas in the first the three elements, brains, labour, and capital are mostly amalgamated, in the second, brains, labour, and capital are highly differentiated. That is to say, our citizens supply the share capital from their savings, our men of affairs furnish the brain power and management, while our clerks or artisans do the clerical or manual work.
The socialist proposal would be that the State should transfer to itself the share capital, and that the men of business, as well as the clerks or artisans, should become civil servants. But, in truth, there are insuperable difficulties in the way. For, as it is, all these industries exist under the severest conditions of rivalry. If they are to pass into the hand of one owner, the State, that rivalry and competition will either cease, or the reverse; if the former, then the chief stimulus of our industrial energy will have been eliminated; if the latter, then all the intense forces of struggle and contention now dissipated among numberless industries,
