IV

POLITICS

3 2 7

ing itself with evolving a version of Individual-istic Capitalism adapted to the progressivechange of circumstances. The difficulty isthat the Capitalist leaders in the City and inParliament are incapable of distinguishing novelmeasures for safeguarding Capitalism fromwhat they call Bolshevism. If old-fashionedCapitalism was intellectually capable of defend-ing itself, it would not be dislodged for manygenerations. But, fortunately for Socialists ,there is little chance of this.

I believe that the seeds of the intellectualdecay of Individualistic Capitalism are to befound in an institution which is not in the leastcharacteristic of itself, but which it took overfrom the social system of Feudalism whichpreceded it,—namely, the hereditary principle.The hereditary principle in the transmissionof wealth and the control of business is thereason why the leadership of the CapitalistCause is weak and stupid. It is too muchdominated by third-generation men. Nothingwill cause a social institution to decay withmore certainty than its attachment to thehereditary principle. It is an illustration of thisthat by far the oldest of our institutions, theChurch, is the one which has always kept itselffree from the hereditary taint.

Just as the Conservative Party will alwayshave its Die-Hard wing, so the Labour Partywill always be flanked by the Party of Ca-tastrophe—Jacobins, Communists , Bolshevists,whatever you choose to call them. This is the