By a very curious paradox, which it would take much too long to go into in detail, but which it is amusing to notice, this power of taxing a very highly capitalist community is one of the things which is beginning to handicap our Capitalist societies to-day against the Distributive societies. It used to be all the other way, and it seemed common sense that countries where you could levy large sums for State purposes of war or peace would win against countries where you could not levy such sums for public purposes. But the fact that you can tax so very highly a society of a few rich and many poor has been shown in the last few years to have most unexpected results. The very rich men pay all right; but the drain on the total resources of the wealth of the State weakens it. The money raised by taxation is spent on State servants--many of them inefficient and idle. Since it is so easy to raise large sums, there is a temptation to indulge in all sorts of expensive State schemes, many of which come to nothing. And this power of easy taxation, which was a strength, becomes a weakness. No one suspected this until taxation rose to its present height, but now it is clearly apparent; and we in England might perhaps be in a better way later on if there had been as much resistance to high taxation here as there has been in countries where property is better distributed. SOCIALISM It remains to deal with a certain remedy which some people have imagined would get rid of all the disadvantages of Capitalism once and for all. This remedy is called _Socialism_, and Socialism, as we shall see in a moment, must mean ultimately _Communism_. No one has ever succeeded in putting this remedy for the evils of Capitalism into practice, and (though the matter is still very much disputed) it looks more and more as though no one would ever be able to put it into practice. We have seen what the evils of Capitalism were and how they have exasperated nearly everyone who has become subject to a capitalist state of society. There is the increasing insecurity which everybody feels--all the Proletariat and many of the Capitalists as well--whilst there is the necessary tendency of Capitalism to leave a larger and larger proportion of people unproductive, not making the wealth which is necessary for their support, and therefore either kept in idleness by Doles out of the wealth which is still produced (a process which cannot go on for ever) or starving. Pretty well everyone wants to get rid of these evils and to get out of the Capitalist system, and this idea of Socialism which we are going to examine seemed, when it was first put forward, an easy and obvious shortcut out of the Capitalist muddle. When we have looked into it, we shall see how and why Socialism does not, in practice, turn out to be a shortcut at all, but a blind alley. * * * * *