The reason it cannot be put into practice is this: Although we use the words “the State” this mere idea means in practice real men who act as officials to represent the State. Actual men with their varying characters, good and bad, lazy and industrious, just and unjust, have got to undertake the enormous business _first_ of running production in the interest of all, _next_ of distributing the resultant wealth equally to all. Now there are two qualities in man which make action of this sort break down. The first is that men love independence--they like to feel themselves their own masters. They like therefore to _own_, so that they may do what they like with material things. The next is that men like to get as much as possible of good things. Both these feelings are universally true of the human race. You will find exceptional people, of course, who are just as contented with a little as with a great deal, and you will find exceptional people who do not care about independence or about owning, and who are quite willing to be run by other people, or to give up all possession for the sake of some special way of living: that is, there is a comparatively small number of men and women who, in order to live free from responsibility, or in order to devote themselves to religion or to some form of study and contemplation, will give up all property and have the material side of their lives administered for them. But men and women in general will both want to get all they can of good things with the least possible exertion in the getting of them, and they will also desire freedom to exercise their own wills and deal with material objects as they choose. Now the Socialist scheme requires both these very strong emotions, common to all mankind, to be suppressed. The people who run the State--that is the politicians--are to be absolutely just (although there is no one to force them to be just), they are to forget all personal wishes and to think of nothing but the good of those whose labour they direct and among whom they share out the wealth that is produced. We know by experience that politicians are not angels of this sort. It is absurd to imagine that men coveting public office (and living the life of intrigue necessary to get it) would suddenly turn into unselfish and devoted beings of this ideal kind. You cannot give this enormous power to men without their abusing it.