The reason men commonly adopt the Distributive form of society, and tend to return to it if they can, is that the advantages it presents seem greater in most men’s eyes than its disadvantages. The advantages are these:-- It gives freedom: that is, the exercise of one’s will. A family possessed of the means of production--the simplest form of which is the possession of land and of the implements and capital for working the land--cannot be controlled by others. Of course, various producers specialise, and through exchange one with the other they become more or less interdependent, but still, each one can live “on his own”: each one can stand out, if necessary, from pressure exercised against him by another. He can say: “If you will not take my surplus as against your surplus I shall be the poorer; but at least I can live.” Societies of this kind are not only free, but also, what goes with freedom, elastic--that is, they mould themselves easily to changed conditions. The individual, or the family, controlling his or its own means of production, can choose what he will do best, and can exercise his faculties, if he has sufficient knowledge, to the best advantage. This arrangement also gives security, though not as much security as the Servile State. Men in this position of ownership are not in dread of the immediate future. They can carry on. They may, if they choose, make a reserve of their produce to carry them over moments of difficulty. For instance, they will probably have each a reserve of food to carry them over a bad harvest or some natural disaster. Further, it is found in practice that societies of this kind continue for centuries without much change. They go on for generations with a property well divided among them and everybody free, so far as economic situation is concerned. No such society has ever been destroyed except by some great shock; and so long as every shock can be warded off, this system of having the land and the means of production controlled by the mass of the citizens as private owners is enduring. There are districts of Europe to-day where the system has continued from beyond the memory of man. Such a little state as Andorra is an example, and many of the Swiss valleys. Further, when the system has been laboriously reconstructed, when the mass of families who used to be dispossessed have been again put into possession of land and the means of production, we find that the state arrived at is stable. The best example of that sort of reconstruction to-day is to be found in Denmark, but you have it also in a less marked fashion in most parts of France and in most of the Valley of the Rhine, in Belgium and Holland, in Norway, and in many other places. Wherever it has been settled it has taken root firmly.