"Political Ideals" - читать интересную книгу автора (Russell Bertrand)

justification whatever for incomes derived in this way. And apart
from the passive enjoyment of rent or interest, the methods of
acquiring wealth are very largely predatory. It is not, as a rule, by
means of useful inventions, or of any other action which increases the
general wealth of the community, that men amass fortunes; it is much
more often by skill in exploiting or circumventing others. Nor is it
only among the rich that our present rОgime promotes a narrowly
acquisitive spirit. The constant risk of destitution compels most men
to fill a great part of their time and thought with the economic
struggle. There is a theory that this increases the total output of
wealth by the community. But for reasons to which I shall return
later, I believe this theory to be wholly mistaken.

Economic injustice is perhaps the most obvious evil of our present
system. It would be utterly absurd to maintain that the men who
inherit great wealth deserve better of the community than those who
have to work for their living. I am not prepared to maintain that
economic justice requires an exactly equal income for everybody. Some
kinds of work require a larger income for efficiency than others do;
but there is economic injustice as soon as a man has more than his
share, unless it is because his efficiency in his work requires it, or
as a reward for some definite service. But this point is so obvious
that it needs no elaboration.

The modern growth of monopolies in the shape of trusts, cartels,
federations of employers and so on has greatly increased the power of
the capitalist to levy toll on the community. This tendency will not
cease of itself, but only through definite action on the part of those
who do not profit by the capitalist rОgime. Unfortunately the
distinction between the proletariat and the capitalist is not so sharp
as it was in the minds of socialist theorizers. Trade-unions have
funds in various securities; friendly societies are large capitalists;
and many individuals eke out their wages by invested savings. All
this increases the difficulty of any clear-cut radical change in our
economic system. But it does not diminish the desirability of such a
change.

Such a system as that suggested by the French syndicalists, in which
each trade would be self-governing and completely independent, without
the control of any central authority, would not secure economic
justice. Some trades are in a much stronger bargaining position than
others. Coal and transport, for example, could paralyze the national
life, and could levy blackmail by threatening to do so. On the other
hand, such people as school teachers, for example, could rouse very
little terror by the threat of a strike and would be in a very weak
bargaining position. Justice can never be secured by any system of
unrestrained force exercised by interested parties in their own
interests. For this reason the abolition of the state, which the
syndicalists seem to desire, would be a measure not compatible with
economic justice.