Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/201

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the evident earnestness and sincerity of its writers, does not remove these difficulties. State Socialism we found to be theoretically possible. With an efficient bureaucracy, and a docile people ready to work hard and to be told what to produce or consume, the system might work well, though only by eliminating the surprises and failures that give life much of its zest and most of its discipline. But it is difficult to see how the schemes of the Guild Socialists could be fitted into a system that could work, without the sacrifice of most of the objects that they hope to secure.

A book on the subject of National Guilds from which I have already quoted freely, is Self-Government in Industry, by G. D. H. Cole. On page 4 he tells us: "I am putting forward in this book some general suggestions for industrial reconstruction. These suggestions are based upon the idea that the control of industry should be democratized; that the workers themselves should have an ever-increasing measure of power and responsibility in control, and that capitalist supremacy can be overthrown only by a system of industrial democracy in which the workers will control industry in conjunction with a democratized State. This is the system of National Guilds,