of the citizens of the classless society of the future, a society based on social solidarity, on world-wide brotherhood. But to the socialist materialist, war, in a world based on private ownership of the means of production used to produce commodities, with its concomitants, the wage-system, competition—domestic and international,—and ever-recurring "over-production," is so very far from unreasonable that it is absolutely inevitable.[1]
Mr. Wells evidently brought something with him when he left the Doll's House.
We now begin to realize what a very difficult matter it is to rid the mind completely of the effects of what Professor Veblen calls "the institutional furniture handed down from the past." The man, who yields to the lure of Socialism, must sooner or later effect a revolution within his own mind; if he does not, he will sooner or later return to his Doll's House, or make an excursion into some field of "pragmatic romance" where he will build himself a new doll's house.
Granted the truth of historical materialism,
- ↑ In fact, Professor Veblen has shown that for the last quarter of a century the commonest cause of seasons of "ordinary prosperity" has been war. See "The Theory of Business Enterprise." Pages 250–1.
