Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/221



we turn to the National Guilds; an Enquiry into the Wage System, and the Way Out, by A. R. Orage, or by S. G. Hobson, edited by A. R. Orage, we find very much the same point of view as Mr. Cole's, but a different method of approach. It deals with the problem of reforming our economic system with the jovial cheerfulness of a Newfoundland puppy worrying a door-mat. It starts with the assumption which we have found to be common to so many of the people who want to turn society upside down, that labour at present produces everything that is produced and is robbed of a large part of its product by buccaneers who exploit it, and that it is therefore labour's duty to deal with the robbers as robbers should be dealt with. Here is an example both of the style of this book and of the methods which it advocates (page 5): "Labour must realize that its emancipation can only become possible when it has absorbed every shilling of surplus value. The way to do this is by tireless and