structure of society I have no doubt there will be elements to which the
socialist, the syndicalist, the capitalist, and the individualist will
have contributed. By degrees it will be discovered what enterprises are
best directed by the State, by municipalities, by groups, or by
individuals. But if the idea of democratic control is predominant,
those enterprises which are otherwise directed will yet meet the
prevalent mood by adopting the ideas of the treatment of the workers
enforced in democratically controlled enterprises, and will in every
respect, except control, make their standards equal. All the needles of
being point to the centres where power is most manifested. The effects
of the French revolution--a democratic upheaval--invaded men's minds
everywhere. Even the autocratically ruled States, hitherto careless
about the people in their underworlds, had to make advances to
democracy, and give it some measure of the justice democracy threatened
to deal to itself. Without demanding absolutism I do desire a
predominant democratic character in our national enterprises, rather
than a confused muddle or struggle of interests where nothing really
emerges except the egoism of those who struggle.

It will be noticed that in all that has preceded I have referred little
to action by government, though it is on governments that democracies
over the world are now fixing all their hopes. They believe the State
is the right agency to bring about reforms and changes in society. And
I must here explain why I do not share their hopes. My distrust of the
State in economic reform is based on the belief that governments in
great nation-states, even representative governments, are not malleable
by the general will. They are too easily dominated by the holders of
economic power, are, in fact, always dominated by aristocracies with
land or by the aristocracies of wealth. It is the hand at the helm
guides the ship. The larger the State is the more easily do the holders