My business will not be to enter into the discussion between these two types of modern thinkers, but to point out to each and to both that that which the one favours and the other would fly is upon them.
I shall prove my thesis in particular from the case of the industrial society of Great Britain, including that small, alien, and exceptional corner of Ireland, which suffers or enjoys industrial conditions to-day.
I shall divide the matter thus:—
(1) I shall lay down certain definitions.
(2) Next, I shall describe the institution of slavery and The Servile State of which it is the basis, as these were in the ancient world. I shall then:
(3) Sketch very briefly the process whereby that age-long institution of slavery was slowly dissolved during the Christian centuries, and whereby the resulting medieval system, based upon highly divided property in the means of production, was
(4) wrecked in certain areas of Europe as it approached completion, and had substituted for it, in practice though not in legal theory, a society based upon Capitalism.
(5) Next, I shall show how Capitalism was of its nature unstable, because its social realities were in conflict with all existing or possible systems of law, and because its effects in denying sufficiency and security were intolerable to men; how being thus unstable, it consequently presented a problem which demanded a solution: to wit, the establishment of some stable form of society whose law and social practice should correspond, and whose economic results, by providing sufficiency and security, should be tolerable to human nature.
(6) I shall next present the only three possible solutions:—
(a) Collectivism, or the placing of the means of production in the hands of the political officers of the community.