THE END OF LAISSEZ-FAIRE

other business requiring a large fixed capital,still need to be semi-socialised. But we mustkeep our minds flexible regarding the formsof this semi-socialism. We must take fulladvantage of the natural tendencies of theday, and we must probably prefer semi-autonomous corporations to organs of theCentral Government for which Ministers ofState are directly responsible.

I criticise doctrinaire State Socialism, notbecause it seeks to engage men’s altruisticimpulses in the service of Society, or becauseit departs from laissez-faire, or because ittakes away from man’s natural liberty to makea million, or because it has courage for boldexperiments. All these things I applaud. Icriticise it because it misses the significanceof what is actually happening; because it is,in fact, little better than a dustv survival of aplan to meet the problems of fifty years ago,based on a misunderstanding of what someonesaid a hundred years ago. Nineteenth-centuryState Socialism sprang from Bentham, freecompetition, etc., and is in some respects a45