In theory certain small sections of the means of production might be acquired in this way. That particular section would have been "socialised." The "Sinking Fund" (that is, the paying of the Capitalists for their plant by instalments) might be met out of the general taxation imposed on the community, considering how large that is compared with any one experiment of the kind. The "interest" may by good management be met out of the true profits of the tramways. At the end of a certain number of years the community will be in possession of the tramways, will no longer be exploited in this particular by Capitalism, will have bought out Capitalism from the general taxes, and, in so far as the purchase money paid has been consumed and not saved or invested by the Capitalists, a small measure of "socialisation" will have been achieved. As a fact things are never so favourable. In practice three conditions militate against even these tiny experiments in expropriation: the fact that the implements are always sold at much more than their true value; the fact that the purchase includes non-productive things; and the fact that the rate of borrowing is much faster than the rate of repayment. These three adverse conditions lead in practice to nothing but the riveting of Capitalism more securely round the body of the State. For what is it that is paid for when a tramway, for instance, is taken over? Is it the true capital alone, the actual plant, which is paid for, even at an exaggerated price? Far from it! Over and above the rails and the cars, there are all the commissions that have been made, all the champagne luncheons, all the lawyers' fees, all the compensations to this man and to that man, all the bribes. Nor does this exhaust the argument. Tramways represent a productive investment. What about pleasure gardens, wash-houses, baths, libraries, monuments, and the rest? The greater part of these things are the product of "loans." When you put up a public institution you borrow the bricks and the mortar and the iron and the wood and the tiles from Capitalists, _and you pledge yourself to pay interest, and to produce a sinking fund precisely as though a town hall or a bath were a piece of reproductive machinery_. To this must be added the fact that a considerable proportion of the purchases are failures: purchases of things just before they are driven out by some new invention; while on the top of the whole business you have the fact that the borrowing goes on at a far greater rate than the repayment.