The second force making against the establishment of Socialism is still stronger. You will never get the run of men and women contented to live their whole lives entirely under orders. In exceptional moments a large part of individual freedom will be given up to the necessity of the State--as during the Great War; for if the State did not survive the individual’s life and that of his children would not be worth living. The individual in abnormal crises goes through a great deal of suffering for a moment in order that he and his should have less pain in the long run. But even in such crises a large part of liberty remains to him. Under Socialism he would have none. He would have to do what he was told by his task-masters, much more than even the poorest labourers now have to do what they are told by task-masters. And there would also be this difference: that _everyone_ would be in that situation and there would be no way out. Not a part of life, nor so many hours a day, but the whole of life, would be subject to orders given by others. This, humanity would certainly find intolerable. That is why, I think, Socialism has never been put into practice and never can be put into practice. There have been attempts at it, but even when they are sincere and not the mere product of alien despotism they break down. As in Russia to-day, where, whether the Jew adventurers who seized power were sincere or mere tyrants, they have, in spite of their attempt at seizing all the soil and keeping the peasants dependent on them, been compelled at last to let nearly all the nation live as owners tilling their own land. It is no reply to this to say that the State always has owned, and actually can and does own, _some_ part of the means of Production (such as the Post Office and certain forests and lands here in England, and, abroad, most mountain land, all mines and much else) and direct them with success. The point of Socialism--the one condition necessary to its existence--is that the State should own _all_ the means of Production that really count. Between the normal exercise of a partial function and the abnormal exercise of a universal function is all the difference between _plus_ and _minus_. A partial State ownership working in a society the determining character of which is private ownership is an utterly different thing, even an _opposite_ thing to general State ownership determining the character of Society and allowing only exceptional private ownership. Socialism can only be (_a_) good (_b_) possible when men desire, and are at ease in, the latter kind of state; that is, desire and are at ease in complete forgetfulness of self coupled with justice as men ruling, and complete surrender of personal honour and freedom and appetite as men ruled. INTERNATIONAL EXCHANGE