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110
Roads to Freedom

methods of agriculture. (I am not speaking of wartime.) The amount of food that people desire has natural limits, and the waste that would be incurred would probably not be very great. As the Anarchists point out, people at present enjoy an unlimited water-supply, but very few leave the taps running when they are not using them. And one may assume that public opinion would be opposed to excessive waste. We may lay it down, I think, that the principle of unlimited supply could be "adopted in regard to all commodities for which the demand has limits that fall short of what can be easily produced. And this would be the case, if production were efficiently organized, with the necessaries of life, including not only commodities, but also such things as education. Even if all education were free up to the highest, young people, unless they were radically transformed by the Anarchist régime, would not want more than a certain amount of it. And the same applies to plain foods, plain clothes, and the rest of the things that supply our elementary needs.

I think we may conclude that there is no technical impossibility in the Anarchist plan of free sharing.

But would the necessary work be done, if the individual were assured of the general standard of comfort even though he did no work?

Most people will answer this question unhesitatingly in the negative. Those employers, in particular, who are in the habit of denouncing their employees as a set of lazy, drunken louts, will feel quite certain that no work could be got out of them except under threat