io6 THE COMING OF SOCIALISM 



its citizens to say " Mine," with new significance over a 

 wider range of utilities. And the essence and value of 

 property do not lie in exclusion, in saying " Not Thine" 

 as the unsocialised and unmoralised agent believes, but 

 in its inclusion, in widening and deepening the meaning 

 of " Miner 



But this aspect of the truth is ignored by the Socialist. 

 He sees in this instance only the supersession of the one 

 private capitalist, and he ignores the creation of the 

 millions of active shareholders. He sees the displace- 

 ment, but overlooks the re-instalment. He overlooks the 

 fact that the State only holds the capital for its members, 

 that it gives back the profits in utilities, and that it makes 

 itself the instrument of the individual will, and thereby 

 indefinitely enlarges its powers. For the State, after all, 

 acts for the individual, and by means of the individual 

 in this matter ; it organises the powers of its citizens, 

 but it does not annul them. ' 



We should reach the same results, on the whole, if 

 we examined other State and Civic undertakings. And 

 although I am by no means prepared to say that there is 

 no limit or rule to State and Civic enterprises, I may 

 claim that both the abstract opposition to, and the abstract 

 advocacy of, State or municipal action, on the ground that 

 it is an encroachment on individual enterprise and nothing 

 else, are radically unintelligent and false. They rest on 

 categories of mere exclusion, which in the sphere of 

 .rational activities are never true. 



All legitimate State or Civic enterprise means the 

 organisation rather^ than the elimination _of _individual 

 wills ; and this, in turn, means not only more united 

 action on the part of the whole, but more efficient 



