_Taking account of these various groups of undoubted facts, many of which are so gross, so terrible, that they cannot be overstated, it is not too much to say that our whole system of society is rotten from top to bottom, and the Social Environment as a whole, in relation to our possibilities and our claims, is the worst that the world has ever seen._ Such are the evil products of the social environment we have ourselves created in the course of a single century. We have seen it going from bad to worse, and have applied petty remedies here and there during the whole period; but the evils have continued to increase. It has now become clear to the more intelligent of the workers that if we wish to improve it—if we wish to prevent it from getting even worse than it is—we must deal with the root-causes of the evil and, so far as possible, _reverse the conditions which are so demonstrably bad, such hideous failures_. And, fortunately, this is by no means so difficult as it may seem to be, because a large body of our thinkers and a considerable number of our workers see clearly what these root-causes are, and, less clearly, how to remedy them. They will, however, give their energetic support to any Government that devotes itself to the task of remedying them. The following are my own views as to how the problem must be attacked in order to solve it thoroughly and permanently. _The Root-cause and the Remedy_ If we review with care the long train of social evils which have grown up during the nineteenth century, we shall find that every one of them, however diverse in their nature and results, is due to the same general cause, which may be defined or stated in a variety of different ways: (1) They are due, broadly and generally, to our living under a system of universal _competition_ for the means of existence, the remedy for which is equally universal _co-operation_. (2) It may be also defined as a system of _economic antagonism_, as of enemies, the remedy being a system of _economic brotherhood_, as of a great family, or of friends. (3) Our system is also one of _monopoly_ by a few of all the means of existence: the land, without access to which no life is possible; and capital, or the results of stored-up labour, which is now in the possession of a limited number of capitalists and therefore is also a monopoly. The remedy is freedom of access to land and capital for all. (4) Also, it may be defined as _social injustice_, inasmuch as the _few_ in each generation are allowed to inherit the stored-up wealth of all preceding generations, while the _many_ inherit nothing. The remedy is to adopt the principle of equality of opportunity for all, or of universal _inheritance by the State in trust for the whole Community_.