Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/228

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

present individual contribution to rent and interest; and, finally, plus whatever savings are effected by more efficient organization. He will not, therefore, receive wages (as we now know them), because he will receive something much greater—possibly three times greater than the existing wage standard."

Here we find two difficulties. "Once a member of his Guild"—one is brought up by the question, how will membership of these Guilds be arranged? At present people do have more or less choice of the kind of occupation in which they will spend the working part of their lives. In the case of most of us, it is true, economic fate or hazard marks out some course for us, and in most cases the choice, such as it is, is made long before we can be said to have minds to make up on the subject, and still longer before we have sufficient experience and knowledge to exercise the choice well. Nevertheless, some choice there is, and it is possible and does happen, that people who have made a wrong choice, or think so, can later in life change from one occupation to another. But how much freedom would these organized and regimented Guilds allow to any aspiring youth who wanted to become a member, and by what methods and