Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/275

Rh, the State would be able to give all the youth of the land an education and training adapted to their capacity, and all the disinherited would have at least the same advantages as are enjoyed today by the disinherited younger son of the peer. But the peer provides for his younger children to whom he bequeaths none of his wealth, by employing his family and political connections to obtain situations for them in the service of the State, community or among his friends, which have more or less the character of a benefice or perpetual office. What is this more than an organized solidarity, which offers the individual even greater securities for a comfortable existence than an independent fortune? It is true this solidarity is narrow and selfish; it is confined to one caste and has for its sole purpose the plundering of thy majority for the benefit of a few parasites. Let us imagine the limits of this solidarity widened to include the whole community and its purpose, not to support parasites, but to perform necessary and useful work; let us imagine a state which provides instruction and if the parents are incapable of bearing the expense—food, clothing and shelter for all the children within its limits until they are old enough to enter upon their business career, and when this time arrives, supplies them with tools and materials for independent labor. In such a community of fellowship would not each individual be well provided for, and would the absorption of the father's wealth at his decease, into the public treasury be an act of injustice against the children?

I can not deny for a moment that the practical realization of this scheme would at first meet with many and difficult obstacles. The parents would try to escape from the necessity of bequeathing their property to the State by presenting it to their children and others while they were still alive. This would result in the practical