the industrial state, instead of
being the mere receiver and dispenser of products produced by labour,
would represent the intellectual forces by which every process of labour
is directed, the problems of how the individuals who compose the state
are to be chosen, and of how the continuous exertion of their highest
faculties is to be secured, become the fundamental problems which
socialists are called upon to consider.

If we assume that under the regime of socialism a nation could always
secure, as the official directors of its labour, the men whose ability
would enable them to direct it to the best advantage, and could force
these men to exert their exceptional faculties to the utmost, the
exaction of obedience to their orders from the common labouring
citizens, let me say once more, would present no theoretical difficulty.
But the task of securing the requisite ability itself is of a wholly
different kind. Let us consider why.

Any one armed with an adequate implement of authority, whether the
control of the means of subsistence or the power of inflicting
punishment, can secure, within limits, from any ordinary man the
punctual performance of any ordinary manual task, and the performance of
it in a prescribed way; but he is able to do this for the following
reasons only: So far as ordinary labour is concerned, any one man, by
simply observing another, can tell with approximate accuracy what the
other man can do--whether he can trundle a wheel-barrow, hit a nail on
the head, file a casting, or lay brick on brick. Further, the director
of labour knows the precise nature of the result which he requires in
each case that the individual labourer shall accomplish. Hence he can
exact from each labourer conformity to the injunctions laid on him, in
respect both of the general character and the particular application of
his efforts. But in respect of the faculties distinctive of those
exceptional men by whom alone ordinary labour can be directed to the
best advantage, both these conditions are wanting. It is impossible to
tell that any man of ability possesses any exceptional faculties for
directing labour at all, unless he himself chooses to show them; and,
indeed, until circumstances supply him with some motive for showing
them, he may very well not be aware that he possesses such faculties
himself. Moreover, even if he gives the world some reason to suspect
their existence, the world at large will not know what he can do