ABSTRACT
The most obtrusive feature of the change demanded by the advocates of socialism is governmental control of the industrial activities of society, the nationalisation of industry. The modern development of industry and of the industrial organisation of society makes it increasingly necessary that certain industries-often spoken of as 'natural monopolies', should be treated as being of a semi-public character. Now, modern society, the society in which competition without prescription is predominant, is preeminently an industrial, economic society, and it is industrial, economic, excellence that most readily attracts the approving regard of that society. Economic success is in our day the most widely accepted as well as the most readily ascertainable measure of esteem. All this will hold with still greater force of a generation which is born into a world already encrusted with this habit of a mind.
