There can be
no feasible or desirable process of leveling down. Such a course only
promotes poverty by making it universal instead of exceptional. Forcing
the efficient producer to become inefficient does not make the
inefficient producer more efficient. Poverty can be done away with only
by plenty, and we have now gone far enough along in the science of
production to be able to see, as a natural development, the day when
production and distribution will be so scientific that all may have
according to ability and industry.
The extreme Socialists went wide of the mark in their reasoning that
industry would inevitably crush the worker. Modern industry is gradually
lifting the worker and the world. We only need to know more about
planning and methods. The best results can and will be brought about by
individual initiative and ingenuity--by intelligent individual
leadership. The government, because it is essentially negative, cannot
give positive aid to any really constructive programme. It can give
negative aid--by removing obstructions to progress and by ceasing to be
a burden upon the community.
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