the London and North-Western Railway. His ownership would mean merely that he was entitled to a share of the profits, and that he had one vote out of a thousand in electing the managers. But however the managers were elected, he would have to obey their orders; and their discipline would be probably stricter than that of any private owner. Much more would this be the case if the dream of the Socialist were fulfilled, and if instead of each factory or business being owned by its own workers, all the workers of the country collectively owned all the businesses—all the machinery, all the raw materials, and all the capital reserved for and spent in wages. For though the capital of the country would be owned by the workers nominally, their use of it would have to be regulated by a controlling body, namely the State. The managers and the taskmasters would all be State officials, and be armed with the powers of the State to enforce discipline. The individual under such an arrangement, might gain in point of income; but if he is foolish enough to adopt the view of the agitator, and regard himself as the slave to capital now, he would be no less a slave to it were all capitals amalgamated, and out of so many million shares he himself were to own one. [Sidenote ◆1 For it must always be remembered that the idea of an equal distribution of wealth necessarily presupposes the State as sole employer and capitalist.] ◆¹ It is particularly desirable in this particular place to fix the reader’s attention on this aspect of the question, because it is inseparably associated with the point we are preparing to consider—namely, the pecuniary position in which the individual would be placed by an equal division, were such possible, of the entire national income. For we must bear in mind that not even in thought or theory is an equal division of the national income possible, unless all the products of the labour of every citizen are in the first place taken by the State as sole employer and capitalist, and are then distributed as wages in equal portions. Under no other conditions could equality be more than momentary. If each worker himself sold his own products to the consumer,—which he could not do, because no one produces the whole of anything,—the strong and industrious would soon be richer than the idle; and the man with no children richer than the man with ten. Inequality would have begun again as soon as one day’s work was over. Equality demands, as the Socialists are well aware, that all incomes shall be wages paid by the State; and it implies further, as we shall presently have occasion to observe—that equal wages shall be paid to all individuals, not because they are equally productive, but because they are all equally human. When therefore I speak, as I shall do presently, of what each individual would receive, if wealth were divided equally, I must be understood as meaning that he would receive so much from the State.