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The Ideal State 



positive and thorough conquest of the means of pro- 

 duction. . . . The force which these workers have 

 substituted, for individual and associated capitalist 

 initiative and efficiency of their organised class, fore- 

 shadows to syndicalists the future, for they declare 

 that just this professional consciousness and moral 

 training is the force which will lead to the future social 

 order, and on which it will depend, and as it is at 

 the present, so will it be in the future, a source of 

 increasing economic progress and continuously growing 

 moral development." 



We have given this long extract from the article in 

 order to show that the modern cry of " the country 

 going to the dogs " ; " revolution rampant " ; " the 

 wreck of the constitution," is the result of ignorance 

 and prejudice. Social betterment, as we have reiterated 

 again and again, must mean moral improvement. 

 Raise a man's mental outlook, and he at once becomes 

 possessed by an ideal, which causes him to shed the gross 

 and the degrading, and concentrate his energies on the 

 attainment of higher effort. As instanced above, the 

 drunkards cease to drink. Moreover, the love of their 

 fellows is proved in this instance to be the direct out- 

 come of better conditions. Having known the evils of 

 capitalism, these men have no desire to accumulate 

 wealth, and therefore they devote their superfluous 

 means to help the movement which has done so much 

 for them, to provide schools, workmen's houses, and 

 better homes. 



A similar movement has been applied to the land in 

 Italy, where 200,000 acres have passed into the hands 

 of the farm labourers, and to the satisfaction of the land- 

 lords. They have improved the land, regulated em- 

 ployment, and eliminated the heartless sacrifice of the 

 unemployed, of the old and the less fit workers. The 

 Italian Government has recognised the importance of 



