essence of the state is compulsion. Would a socialist state permit the individual to secede from it, to ignore it, to cultivate his little patch, and exchange his products with his neighbors without paying the state any kind of tax or tribute? Would the socialist state renounce the right to conscript men into military service, or the right to impose taxes on dissenting minorities? Where and when has any socialist author or leader proposed to kill the state in this sense to depend entirely and unreservedly on voluntary cooperation, and to base government on the actual consent of all of the governed? There are individualist writers who assert that the socialist state would revert to involuntary servitude and would coerce the workman to a far greater degree than the capitalistic state has done. Let us not hastily subscribe to such charges as these. Certain it is, however, that the socialist state would not even attempt to dispense with compulsion and coercion of noninvasive individuals. The majority would rule at least, in respect of essentials. How, then, can it be maintained that socialism would destroy statism?

At this point the guild socialist may be imagined as appearing on the stage and making his plea. No, indeed; orthodox socialism is incurably statist and tyrannical, and this very fact explains the advent of the guild socialists. They are not juggling with words; they are not guilty of inconsistency. They distrust the state and would reduce it to a minimum. For this reason they would give industrial guilds the maximum of autonomy; they would encourage the formation of other associations for various purposes; they would stimulate voluntary co-operation in a hundred directions. The jurisdiction of the state would be so limited that its present claim to a mysterious sanctity, to metaphysical authority, would appear ridiculous, and utility would become the sole title of the state to respect. Within its sphere, however, the state would use compulsion and possess sufficient authority to prevent usurpation or abuse of power by the autonomous guilds, or other local and functional organizations.

Manifestly, the guild socialists, though sincere in their libertarian professions, beg the real issue, or at least ignore it. They do not propose to kill the state, but merely to limit its jurisdiction

and force it, as one writer has said, to come down from its present "sovereign" pedestal and surrender some of its powers and functions to guild organizations. Their plan may indeed promise greater efficiency than any reasonable person can expect from a bureaucratic and despotic state; it may, too, prove more alluring to lovers of freedom and appreciative students of human personality. Still, the state would be perpetuated by guild socialists, and on supreme questions its fiat would be law.

The syndicalists assert that they would abolish the capitalistic state and prevent the establishment of a democratic or socialist state, but what would be their syndicate if not a small state, and what their federation of syndicates but a confederation of small states? As a matter of fact, syndicalism is a paper scheme that would break down at the first touch of reality-that would spell confusion worse confounded, and sooner or later lead to the restoration of a despotic state. As Mr. Bertrand Russell argues, the syndicalists have outlined no modus operandi to settle controversies among the autonomous industrial organizations, or between any of them and the consuming public. To affirm that the syndicalist directorates would be at all times amenable to reason and properly regardful of interests other than those of their particular industrial group the miners, say, or the railroad workmen, or the able seamen-and that justice would be done in every case without prejudice or passion, is to revert to utopian socialism with a vengeance! But even if we should admit for the sake of the argument that syndicalism is practical, all that would be implied by the admission is that the modern or the traditional state is too powerful and therefore too dangerous, and that the time has come to replace it by a congeries of small, weak states. For, manifestly, the syndicate would be neither more nor less than a small state. The syndicate would have its directorate, its officers, its representative assembly, its referendum system, its rules and regulations. The majority would govern the syndicate within certain constitutionally prescribed limits, and the minority would have no choice but to obey. The majority might allow individuals to withdraw from the syndicate, but this right would have to be qualified and reconciled with the requirements of efficiency and stability. The advantages

of such withdrawal would be problematical, moreover, since the seceding individual or group would, in order to live and earn wages, be forced to join some other syndicate.

Syndicalism would abolish, to be sure, the "political" state, but it would substitute for it the "administrative" state. There are writers and thinkers who derive great comfort from this anticipated change, but it is to be feared that they are the victims of illusions and verbal juggles. Cannot an administrative state be even more tyrannical and arbitrary than our political state? Cannot a trade union be oppressive and despotic? Is "administration" protected by some magic, invisible shield from the vices and evils of political and bureaucratic government?

We must conclude, then, first, that none of the modern schools of thought really proposes to abolish the state, and, second, that the individualistic and philosophical anarchists, who would like to abolish it, and know exactly what is meant by the phrase "abolishing the state" admit that their goal is very distant and from any practical viewpoint utopian, since more than sufficient unto the day are the very first steps suggested toward that goal.

Is there, then, no problem before us that concerns the state, its structure and form, its basis and pillars? Are those who are asserting that the state is undergoing profound modifications imagining vain things? Does the state require no substantial changes? Has it adapted itself to the needs and conditions of our age and is it now functioning as it should? By no means. It is true that the state is "in transition," and that vital and important changes are clearly ahead of it. The nature of the changes is doubtless indicated by recent developments. They are, however, often magnified and even misapprehended.

In the first place, there is much confusion in radical minds with regard to the further democratization of the state. That the state has been, is being, and will continue to be "democratized," is a truism nowadays, but in what sense is the term democracy as applied to the state to be used? With a curious inconsistency many radical writers advocate at the same time the emancipation of the individual and the complete democratization of the state! Democracy is, however, very far from being synonymous with

individual liberty. If a completely democratized state means a state in which the majority rules absolutely, and in all departments of activity, and in which individuals and minorities enjoy none of the guaranties which, for example, they are accorded by the Constitution of the United States, then the democratization of the state will mean the enslavement of the individual. Minority government, oligarchical government, plutocratic government, are severally intolerable, and embattled majorities are now rightly seeking to destroy such forms of government. But majority government is not necessarily just or free government, and within certain limits the individual and the minority must always be protected from majority aggression. On this point the alleged undemocratic features of the American system are sound in principle, though no doubt far from perfect and open to much improvement. We cannot, in the name of democracy, suppress freedom of speech or of the press, or religious freedom, or artistic freedom, or freedom in personal and domestic conduct up to a certain point. To exalt and free the nonconforming individual is to restrain and curb the majority or the democratic state.

Again, the very people who are condemning the present state because of its arrogant assumption of sovereignty, its disregard of individual rights, the individual conscience, and the like, are clamorously demanding additional protective, regulative, restrictive legislation in the interest of the greater or greatest number, of the majority. Send profiteers to prison! is the cry. License all big corporations! Regulate prices and profits! Stop hoarding and speculation! These policies may be democratic, they may be necessary evils, but they are not consonant with individual and minority freedom, with the professed intention of starving and eventually killing the state. The consistent anti-statist may not admire profiteers and hoarders and food gamblers, but he would not regulate them by statutory law. He would trust the law of supply and demand in a free market. He would suffer temporary hardship and loss, but he would not sacrifice personal and economic liberty. To favor increased regulation of industry and commerce is not to kill the state but rather to strengthen it and give it a new lease of life.

Assuming, however, that there are democrats who are also good libertarians, and rational libertarians who are also good practical democrats, the question recurs, What would these do with the state? How would they improve it? First of all, they would deprive it of much of its occupation by re-establishing genuine equality of opportunity and industrial democracy. When crime and criminal vice abound, the state has much to do, and there can be no talk of killing it. When artificial monopoly and iniquitous privilege militate against the equitable and wholesome distribution of wealth and enable the few to exploit the many, appeals go up from a thousand directions to the supposedly mighty state, and legislation is sought in behalf of the poor, the weak, the disinherited. When commercial warfare and tariff or other discriminations threaten war or bring it about, the state metaphorically rubs its hands in glee and knows that its power and prestige are about to receive coveted immunity from criticism. War and preparedness for war always revivify the state and silence its theoretical enemies. War tends to tyranny. War is intolerant. War makes the state sovereign.

Peace, plenty, opportunity, economic justice, on the other hand, tend to weaken the state. Free and prosperous men do not need much government. To fight poverty, involuntary idleness, and unmerited misery is, therefore, to fight the present state. Industrial freedom will pave the way for greater political freedom. This is why the enlightened libertarian is not today greatly interested in academic attacks on the metaphysical state or the political state. He is interested in well-directed attacks on special privilege and shielded, protected monopolies, knowing that to get rid of these is to eradicate much poverty and much of the crime, vice, and brutality that poverty breeds. He who fights for economic and social reform fights for the emancipation of the soul of the individual as well, or for the curtailment of the authority of the state. Flank attacks on the state are far more effective at this stage of evolution than frontal attacks.

Yet there is no reason why in some sectors of the battle line a direct attack on the present "political" state should not be attempted. The governmental machine is breaking down, and the causes of this breakdown are not exclusively, though chiefly, eco