Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/219

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a re-integration, with the placing in the hands of all of both capital and labour. In order to bring this about, the wage-earning class must assume control of capital."

Does this mean that the wage-earning class is going to take forcible possession of the factories and plant which capital has provided? On this point, Mr. Cole does not make himself clear. "This control," he goes on, "under National Guilds, will be exercised collectively, through the State," but he leaves us in the dark as to how the State is going to get control.

In another passage (page 173) he says: "We in our day and generation shall succeed in overthrowing industrial Capitalism only if we first make it socially functionless. This means that, before Capitalism can be overthrown, there must be wrested from it both its control of production and its control of exchange. This done, the abolition of its claim to rent, interest and profits will follow as a matter of course." Further (page 182), "let us suppose for a moment that the Jeremiahs are right in denying the possibility of destroying the economic power of Capitalism by any combination of industrial and political action. There remains the weapon of catastrophic action, envisaged generally in the shape of the General Strike."