98). His ultimate ground for advocating
this system is that, in his opinion, it will tend to preserve
individual liberty: ``The fundamental reason
for the preservation, in a democratic Society, of both
the industrial and the political forms of Social organization
is, it seems to me, that only by dividing the
vast power now wielded by industrial capitalism can
the individual hope to be free'' (p. 91).
[54] Bell, 1917.
Will the system suggested by Mr. Cole have this
result? I think it is clear that it would, in this
respect, be an improvement on the existing system.
Representative government cannot but be improved
by any method which brings the representatives into
closer touch with the interests concerned in their
legislation; and this advantage probably would be
secured by handing over questions of production to
the Guild Congress. But if, in spite of the safeguards
proposed by the Guild Socialists, the Guild Congress
became all-powerful in such questions, if resistance
to its will by a Guild which felt ill-used became practically
hopeless, I fear that the evils now connected
with the omnipotence of the State would soon reappear.
Trade Union officials, as soon as they become
part of the governing forces in the country, tend to
become autocratic and conservative; they lose touch
with their constituents and gravitate, by a psychological
sympathy, into co-operation with the powers
that be.
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