The house of Industry : a new estate of the realm

CHAPTER VIII

UNEARNED INCOMES—STABILISE OR CONFISCATE?

THE constitution of the House of Industry must necessarily have a vital bearing upon the present and future of the possessing classes, and in particular those whose incomes derive from stocks and shares. Nor can it fail to recall the main Socialist doctrines upon which we of the older generation willingly spent ourselves. It will seem merely curious to the historian, but ominous to the convinced Socialist, that political Labourism, now shading off into collectivist Liberalism, ignores, if it does not reject, the main tenets of classic Socialism. For my part, like an old dog that cannot learn new parlour tricks, I prefer to stand by the Socialist analysis of modern society until I see it intellectually supplanted by a scheme of life more vital, more appealing.

At no point do Socialist issues grow more insistent than in the attitude of organised industry to unearned incomes. Proudhon roundly declared that property is robbery; Bernard Shaw turned the phrase into ‘‘ Poverty is a crime.’’ Between these obiter dicta, Socialists may range as they please. Somewhere between is found the old

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