Chapter III

, The First Main Generalisation of Socialism, which according to Mr. Wells is as follows:--

"The ideas of private individual rights of the parent and of his isolated responsibility for his children are harmfully exaggerated in the contemporary world. We do not sufficiently protect children from negligent, incompetent, selfish, or wicked parents.... The Socialist holds that the community should be responsible ... it is not simply the right but the duty of the State ... to intervene in any default for the child's welfare. Parentage rightly undertaken is a service as well as a duty to the world ... in any completely civilised state it must be sustained, rewarded, and controlled...."

Except for the last three words all this is neither new nor controversial amongst not merely Socialists but the mildest of social reformers, always excepting the Charity Organisation Society. The last word is not, I think, further explained.

[38] A Tramway or a Gasworks consists of two things: the actual plant, and the nominal capital which represents its value. When the plant is municipalised, its control is vested in the community, and the shareholders are "compensated" with municipal securities or cash obtained by loans from other investors in these securities. The capital value of the tramway still virtually belongs to the private holders of the municipal loan. But no second such step is possible. Holders of municipal stock cannot be "compensated," if it is taken from them. They can be paid off; or their property can be confiscated either by taxation or by repudiation of the debt: there is no middle course. The whole problem therefore arises from confusion of thought.

See Fabian Tract 147 "Capital and Compensation."

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