So here again, unless we are prepared to re-establish some form of forced labor, we reach an impasse. But it is an impasse only in so long as we regard the proprietary rights of those who own the capital used in industry as absolute and an end in themselves. If, instead of assuming that all property, merely because it is property, is equally sacred, we ask what is the _purpose_ for which capital is used, what is its _function_, we shall realize that it is not an end but a means to an end, and that its function is to serve and assist (as the economists tell us) the labor of human beings, not the function of human beings to serve those who happen to own it. And from this truth two consequences follow. The first is that since capital is a thing, which ought to be used to help industry as a man may use a bicycle to get more quickly to his work, it ought, when it is employed, to be employed on the cheapest terms possible. The second is that those who own it should no more control production than a man who lets a house controls the meals which shall be cooked in the kitchen, or the man who lets a boat the speed at which the rowers shall pull. In other words, capital should always be got at cost price, which means, unless the State finds it wise, as it very well may, to own the capital used in certain industries, it should be paid the lowest interest {103} for which it can be obtained, but should carry no right either to residuary dividends or to the control of industry. There are, in theory, five ways by which the control of industry by the agents of private property-owners can be terminated. They may be expropriated without compensation. They may voluntarily surrender it. They may be frozen out by action on the part of the working _personnel_, which itself undertakes such functions, if any, as they have performed, and makes them superfluous by conducting production without their assistance. Their proprietary interest may be limited or attenuated to such a degree that they become mere _rentiers_, who are guaranteed a fixed payment analogous to that of the debenture-holder, but who receive no profits and bear no responsibility for the organization of industry. They may be bought out. The first alternative is exemplified by the historical confiscations of the past, such as, for instance, by the seizure of ecclesiastical property by the ruling classes of England, Scotland and most other Protestant states. The second has rarely, if ever, been tried--the nearest approach to it, perhaps, was the famous abdication of August 4th, 1789. The third is the method apparently contemplated by the building guilds which are now in process of formation in Great Britain. The fourth method of treating the capitalist is followed by the co-operative movement. It is also that proposed by the committee of employers and trade-unionists in the building industry over which Mr. Foster presided, and which