I am aware that this method is contrary
to the spirit of Socialism, but I do not see what
other way there is of securing freedom. The payment
might be made by undertaking to engage for
an assigned period in some work of recognized utility
and to hand over such proportion of the earnings as
might be necessary. The work undertaken might
of course be, as Kropotkin suggests, the manual part
of the production of books, but I see no special reason
why it should be. It would have to be an absolute
rule that no book should be refused, no matter what
the nature of its contents might be, if payment for
publication were offered at the standard rate. An
author who had admirers would be able to secure their
help in payment. An unknown author might, it is
true, have to suffer a considerable loss of comfort
in order to make his payment, but that would give
an automatic means of eliminating those whose writing
was not the result of any very profound impulse
and would be by no means wholly an evil.
Probably some similar method would be desirable
as regards the publishing and performing of new
music.
What we have been suggesting will, no doubt, be
objected to by orthodox Socialists, since they will find
something repugnant to their principles in the whole
idea of a private person paying to have certain
work done.
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