Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/50

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express an effective demand will get it satisfied. To make the system work really well and only give good rewards to good work, it is thus only necessary to train the great mass of individuals who make up the popular voice to judge better concerning the things that they want to buy. This is a long and difficult process, but it works side by side and hand in hand with real progress, which can only be got by creating a community composed of individuals who are good and sound in every sense. No rearrangement or re-building of systems and institutions will do any good that fails to produce good and sound men and women, any more than the most cunning cooking-stove will make a good omelette out of bad eggs.

Capitalism then is essentially democratic. State Socialism would hand us over to the regulation of the impervious and elusive bureaucrat. Guild Socialism would leave the consumer to the tender mercies of producing Guilds. Capitalism puts the real power in the hands of the average consumer, and so suffers from and rejoices in all the weakness and force, all the hopefulness and despair, that are associated with democracy. If democracy wins its battle by producing a race of men fit to work it, then its victory will cure the worst evils of