IN THE NEAR FUTURE. 605 



right. He is not told that if he is to be fed he must also be 

 driven. 



852. There seems no avoiding the conclusion that these 

 conspiring causes must presently bring about that lapse of 

 self-ownership into ownership by the community, which is 

 partially implied by collectivism and completely by com 

 munism. The momentum of social change, like every other 

 momentum, must work out effects proportionate to its 

 amount, minus the resistance offered to it; and in this case 

 there is very little resistance. Could a great spread of co 

 operative production be counted upon, some hope of arrest 

 might be entertained. But even if its growth justifies the 

 beliefs of its advocates, it seems likely to offer but a feeble 

 check. 



In what way the coming transformation will be effected 

 is of course uncertain. A sudden substitution of the regime 

 proposed for the regime which exists, as intended by bearers 

 of the red flag, seems less likely than a progressive meta 

 morphosis. To bring about the change it needs but grad 

 ually to extend State-regulation and restrain individual 

 action. If the central administration and the multiplying 

 local administrations go on adding function to function ; if 

 year after year more things are done by public agency, and 

 fewer things left to be done by private agency; if the busi 

 nesses of companies are one after another taken over by the 

 State or the municipality, while the businesses of individuals 

 are progressively trenched upon by official competitors; 

 then, in no long time, the present voluntary industrial or 

 ganization will have its place entirely usurped by a com 

 pulsory industrial organization. Eventually the brain- 

 worker will find that there are no places left save in one or 

 other public department; while the hand- worker will find 

 that there are none to employ him save public officials. And 

 so will be established a state in which no man can do what 

 he likes but every man must do what he is told. 



