he constitution, with
the practical freedom and general happiness of the mass of men. It must
be admitted that Lloyd never followed up the implications of this
repudiation. He made his statements in the language of the tradition he
assailed, and foreshadowed the replacement of chaos by order in quite
chaotic and mystical appeals. Here, for instance, is a typical passage
from "Man, the Social Creator".
"Property is now a stumbling-block to the people, just
as government has been. Property will not be abolished,
but, like government, it will be democratised.
"The philosophy of self-interest as the social solution
was a good living and working synthesis in the days when
civilisation was advancing its frontiers twenty miles a day
across the American continent, and every man for himself
was the best social mobilisation possible.
"But to-day it is a belated ghost that has overstayed
the cock-crow. These were frontier morals. But this same,
everyone for himself, becomes most immoral when the
frontier is abolished and the pioneer becomes the fellow-citizen
and these frontier morals are most uneconomic when
labour can be divided and the product multiplied. Most
uneconomic, for they make closure the rule of industry,
leading not to wealth, but to that awful waste of wealth
which is made visible to every eye in our unemployed--not
hands alone, but land, machinery, and, most of all, hearts.
Those who still practise these frontier morals are like
criminals, who, according to the new science of penology,
are simply reappearances of old types. Their acquisitiveness
once divine like Mercury's, is now out of place except
in jail. Because out of place, they are a danger. A sorry
day it is likely to be for those who are found in the way
when the new people rise to rush into each other's arms,
to get together, to stay together and to live together. The
labour movement halts because so many of its rank and
file--and all its leaders--do not see clearly the golden thread
of love on which have been strung together all the past
glories of human association, and which is to serve for
the link of the new Association of Friends who Labour,
whose motto is 'All for All.'"
The establishment of the intricate co-operative commonwealth by a rush
of eighty million flushed and shiny-eyed enthusiasts, in fact, is
Lloyd's proposal. He will not face, and few Americans to this day wil
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