ABSTRACT
The objective difficulties just mentioned are all exemplified in connection with the minimum wage, and, although they are not confined to it, it is in connection with the minimum wage that they are exemplified most clearly. However a state such as that of England was organised—whether production was controlled, as now, by many private employers, or, as socialists propose, by the directors of a great national trust, the crucial difficulty would in this case be the same. So much, then, for the first material difficulty which would stand in the way of rendering our ideal conditions complete. The second arises in connection, not with the perversities of men temperamentally idle, but with an assured provision of suitable work for the industrious. A difficulty, however, does exist, or rather two difficulties, both of them purely mental, by which, if not removed, the development of such acquiescence, natural otherwise, would be impeded.
