I have not dealt with any details touching distributed ownership, or
its possibility in England, for the reason stated in the text. This book
deals with what is wrong, wrong in our root of argument and effort. This
wrong is, I say, that we will go forward because we dare not go back.
Thus the Socialist says that property is already concentrated into
Trusts and Stores: the only hope is to concentrate it further in the
State. I say the only hope is to unconcentrate it; that is, to repent
and return; the only step forward is the step backward.
But in connection with this distribution I have laid myself open to
another potential mistake. In speaking of a sweeping redistribution,
I speak of decision in the aim, not necessarily of abruptness in the
means. It is not at all too late to restore an approximately rational
state of English possessions without any mere confiscation. A policy of
buying out landlordism, steadily adopted in England as it has already
been adopted in Ireland (notably in Mr. Wyndham’s wise and fruitful
Act), would in a very short time release the lower end of the see-saw
and make the whole plank swing more level. The objection to this course
is not at all that it would not do, only that it will not be done. If
we leave things as they are, there will almost certainly be a crash of
confiscation. If we hesitate, we shall soon have to hurry. But if we
start doing it quickly we have still time to do it slowly.
This point, however, is not essential to my book. All I have to urge
between these two boards is that I dislike the big Whiteley shop, and
that I dislike Socialism because it will (according to Socialists) be so
like that shop. It is its fulfilment, not its reversal. I do not object
to Socialism because it will revolutionize our commerce, but because it
will leave it so horribly the same.