Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/252

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freedom as makers, doers and growers of goods and services.

But when the need for this limitation is granted, there is a great range of economic freedom left, in respect of which Capitalism can contend that it confers at least as much as any other possible system that has yet been suggested.

With regard to the consumer's freedom, it beats State Socialism and Guild Socialism so hollow that they are hardly to be seen on the course. Under State Socialism, carried to its logical conclusion, the consumer's freedom, and the producer's likewise, does not even "Also Run." Bureaucrats will decide who is to produce what; and the consumer will take what is produced, on a rationing system with all its exasperating apparatus, or leave it. Mr. Cole paints too flattering a picture with his naughty but amusing jeer, when he says (Self-Government in Industry, page 122), "the greatest of all dangers is the 'Selfridge' State, so loudly heralded these twenty years by Mr. 'Callisthenes' Webb." Mr. Selfridge gives his customers plenty of choice, and with the help of the adroit Callisthenes invites them to come and choose. Mr. Sidney Webb, with scientific and kindly benevolence, would order our lives