Page:Whymenfightameth00russuoft.djvu/84

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72
WHY MEN FIGHT

is on the whole useful to the community. No such form of action, so far as I can see, is associated with private ownership of land or of any other source of economic rent; if this is the case, it follows that the State ought to be the primary recipient of rent.

If all these powers are allowed to the State, what becomes of the attempt to rescue individual liberty from its tyranny?

This is part of the general problem which confronts all those who still care for the ideals which inspired liberalism, namely the problem of combining liberty and personal initiative with organization. Politics and economics are more and more dominated by vast organizations, in face of which the individual is in danger of becoming powerless. The State is the greatest of these organizations, and the most serious menace to liberty. And yet it seems that many of its functions must be extended rather than curtailed.

There is one way by which organization and liberty can be combined, and that is, by securing power for voluntary organizations, consisting of men who have chosen to belong to them because they embody some purpose which all their members consider important, not a pur-