I say, "of the last generation." To-day that simple and superficial judgment is getting woefully disturbed. The most sincere and single-minded of Collectivists cannot but note that the practical effect of their propaganda is not an approach towards the Collectivist State at all, but towards something very different. It is becoming more and more evident that with every new reform--and those reforms commonly promoted by particular Socialists, and in a puzzled way blessed by Socialists in general--another state emerges more and more clearly. It is becoming increasingly certain that the attempted transformation of Capitalism into Collectivism is resulting not in Collectivism at all, but in some third thing which the Collectivist never dreamt of, or the Capitalist either; and that third thing is the /Servile/ State: a State, that is, in which the mass of men shall be constrained _by law_ to labour to the profit of a minority, but, as the price of such constraint, shall enjoy a security which the old Capitalism did not give them. Why is the apparently simple and direct action of Collectivist reform diverted into so unexpected a channel? And in what new laws and institutions does modern England in particular and industrial society in general show that this new form of the State is upon us? To these two questions I will attempt an answer in the two concluding divisions of this book. Section Eight The Reformers and Reformed Are Alike Making for the Servile State I propose in this section to show how the three interests which between them account for nearly the whole of the forces making for social change in modern England are all necessarily drifting towards the Servile State. Of these three interests the first two represent the Reformers--the third the people to be Reformed. These three interests are, first, the _Socialist_, who is the theoretical reformer working along the line of least resistance; secondly, the "_Practical Man_" who as a "practical" reformer depends on his shortness of sight, and is therefore to-day a powerful factor; while the third is that great proletarian mass for whom the change is being effected, and on whom it is being imposed. What _they_ are most likely to accept, the way in which they will react upon new institutions is the most important factor of all, for _they_ are the material with and upon which the work is being done. * * * * * (1) Of the _Socialist_ Reformer: I say that men attempting to achieve Collectivism or Socialism as the remedy for the evils of the Capitalist State find themselves drifting not towards a Collectivist State at all, but towards a Servile State.