2
Property and Inheritance
and the need for a continued extension of State
action are mutually complementary, and arise from
the same technological developments in industry.
We have seen that it is the growing complication of
economic relations and the growing dependence of
the individual on the productive organisation that
make the possession of a reserve of property for
most people an essential condition of any real
freedom and independence. It is the same com-
plication and concentration of industry that explains
the changes in the relation of Government and
industry since 1833, and calls for a further extension
of the regulative and the administrative action of
the State in industry. More State enterprise is
needed, not less, because there are many social needs
that can be met, and social activities that can be
organised, only by communal provision. More
industrial legislation is needed, not less, because
social relations are becoming more complex, and
require more laws to keep them orderly, and because
there are still cases of exploitation of the weak
which legislation could prevent. There is even a case
for more taxation, not less, because current expendi-
ture by the rich on luxuries is much greater than the
post-war world can afford, and taxation for debt
repayment might check it.
But the maintenance of the present right of pro-
perty and a wide diffusion of its enjoyment is needed
as well, to provide a check on bureaucracy, to enable
the wage-eamner and salaried worker to bargain on
equal terms with the large-scale employer, whether
that employer be public or private, to facilitate
voluntary co-operative movement. State action
supplements the economic organisation based on
property ; the social problem of property is the
problem of diffusion.
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