The electric lighting of
London was retarded for ten years solely by the attitude which the state
assumed towards private enterprise.
It is needless to multiply illustrations of this kind further; for my
object is not to show that the state, as it exists at present, is
necessarily inimical to private enterprise as a whole. It is not, for it
has not the power to be. But the fact that even now, when its powers are
so strictly limited and its points of direct contact with industrial
enterprise are so few, tendencies of the kind develop themselves with
such marked practical consequences is enough to show the reality and
magnitude of the evils which would ensue if a body, which reflected on
the one hand the opinions of the average many, and on the other the
individual ability of a few, specially privileged and pledged to their
own methods, were the sole controller of all manual labour whatsoever,
the virtual owner of all the implements which exist at present, the sole
determiner of the forms which such implements shall assume in the
future, and also of the kinds and quantities of the consumable goods
which the implements and the labourers together shall from day to day
produce.
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