s the pathway before us. It is when
we come to the methods of organization and management, the _spirit_ of
the economic organization of the future state, that the light fails and
we must grope our way into the great unknown with imagination and our
sense of justice for guides.

Most Socialist writers who have attempted to deal with this subject
have simply regarded the state as the greatest employer of labor,
carrying on its business upon lines not materially different from those
adopted by the great corporations of to-day. Boards of experts, chosen
by civil service methods, directing all the economic activities of the
state--such is their general conception of the industrial democracy of
the Socialist regime. They believe, in other words, that the methods now
employed by the capitalist state, and by individual and corporate
employers within the capitalist state, would simply be extended under
the Socialist regime. If this be so, a psychological anomaly in the
Socialist propaganda appears in the practical abandonment of the claim
that, as a result of the class conflict in society, the public ownership
evolved within the capitalist state is essentially different from, and
inferior to, the public ownership of the Socialist ideal. It is
perfectly clear that if the industrial organization under Socialism is
to be such that the workers employed in any industry have no more voice
in its management than the postal employees in this country, for
example, have at the present time, it cannot be otherwise than absurd to
speak of it as an industrial democracy.

Here, in truth, lies the crux of the greatest problem of all. We must
face the fact that, in anything worthy the name of an industrial
democracy, the terms and conditions of employment cannot be wholly
decided without regard to the will of the workers themselves on the one
hand, nor, on the other hand, by the workers alone without reference to
the general body of the citizenry. If the former method fails to satisfy
the requirements of democracy by ignoring the will of the workers in the
organization of their work, the alternate method involves a hierarchical
government, equally incompatible with democracy. Some way must be found
by which the industrial government of society, the organization of
production and distribution, may be securely and fairly based upon the
dual basis of common civic rights and the rights of the workers in their
special relations as such.

And here