Yet I do not believe it is nearly
so fantastic as it seems. Even if we could all have
bread for nothing, we should not want more than
a quite limited amount. As things are, the cost of
bread to the rich is so small a proportion of their
income as to afford practically no check upon their
consumption; yet the amount of bread that they consume
could easily be supplied to the whole population
by improved methods of agriculture (I am not speaking
of war-time). The amount of food that people
desire has natural limits, and the waste that would
be incurred would probably not be very great. As
the Anarchists point out, people at present enjoy
an unlimited water supply but very few leave the
taps running when they are not using them. And
one may assume that public opinion would be opposed
to excessive waste. We may lay it down, I think,
that the principle of unlimited supply could be
adopted in regard to all commodities for which the
demand has limits that fall short of what can be
easily produced. And this would be the case, if production
were efficiently organized, with the necessaries
of life, including not only commodities, but also
such things as education. Even if all education were
free up to the highest, young people, unless they were
radically transformed by the Anarchist regime,
would not want more than a certain amount of it.
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