made, because, until they have been made, they will seem too doubtful to warrant the expenditure of public money upon them. Authority will be in the hands of the old, especially of men who have achieved scientific eminence; such men will be hostile to those among the young who do not flatter them by agreeing with their theories. Under a bureaucratic State Socialism it is to be feared that science would soon cease to be progressive and acquire a mediæval respect for authority.
But under a freer system, which would enable all kinds of groups to employ as many men of science as they chose, and would allow the "vagabond's wage" to those who desired to pursue some study so new as to be wholly unrecognized, there is every reason to think that science would flourish as it has never done hitherto.[1] And if that were the case, I do not believe that any other obstacle would exist to the physical possibility of our system.
The question of the number of hours of work necessary to produce general material comfort is partly technical, partly one of organization. We may assume that there would no longer be unproductive labour spent on armaments, national defence, advertisements, costly luxuries for the very rich, or any of the other futilities incidental to our competitive system. If each industrial Guild secured for a term of years the advantages, or part of the advantages, of any new invention or method which it introduced, it is pretty certain that every encouragement would be given to
- ↑ See the discussion of this question in the preceding chapter.
