On
this basis we may build further. I do not think it
is always necessary to pay more highly work which
is more skilled or regarded as socially more useful,
since such work is more interesting and more respected
than ordinary work, and will therefore often be
preferred by those who are able to do it. But we
might, for instance, give an intermediate income to
those who are only willing to work half the usual
number of hours, and an income above that of most
workers to those who choose a specially disagreeable
trade. Such a system is perfectly compatible with
Socialism, though perhaps hardly with Anarchism.
Of its advantages we shall have more to say at a
later stage. For the present I am content to urge
that it combines freedom with justice, and avoids
those dangers to the community which we have found
to lurk both in the proposals of the Anarchists and
in those of orthodox Socialists.
CHAPTER V
GOVERNMENT AND LAW
GOVERNMENT and Law, in their very essence, consist
of restrictions on freedom, and freedom is the
greatest of political goods.[46] A hasty reasoner might
conclude without further ado that Law and government
are evils which must be abolished if freedom
is our goal. But this consequence, true or false, cannot
be proved so simply.
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