The workers in a given industry should all be combined in one
autonomous unit, and their work should not be subject to any outside
control. The state should fix the price at which they produce, but
should leave the industry self-governing in all other respects. In
fixing prices, the state should, as far as possible, allow each
industry to profit by any improvements which it might introduce into
its own processes, but should endeavor to prevent undeserved loss or
gain through changes in external economic conditions. In this way
there would be every incentive to progress, with the least possible
danger of unmerited destitution. And although large economic
organizations will continue, as they are bound to do, there will be a
diffusion of power which will take away the sense of individual
impotence from which men and women suffer at present.
III
Some men, though they may admit that such a system would be desirable,
will argue that it is impossible to bring it about, and that therefore
we must concentrate on more immediate objects.
I think it must be conceded that a political party ought to have
proximate aims, measures which it hopes to carry in the next session
or the next parliament, as well as a more distant goal. Marxian
socialism, as it existed in Germany, seemed to me to suffer in this
way: although the party was numerically powerful, it was politically
weak, because it had no minor measures to demand while waiting for the
revolution.
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