As our community life has become more complex, and as our dependence upon one another has become greater, we have gradually come to expect government to do many things for us, and to control our individual conduct in many ways, that were not thought of at an earlier time.  We have had illustrations of this, also, in foregoing chapters.  For example, whereas roads were at first built and controlled almost entirely by private enterprise, now they are mostly public highways, maintained by state and local governments with the cooperation of the national government.  Proposals to place railroads under government management have always met, and still meet, with opposition; but government exercises a much greater control over them than formerly.  Even education has only gradually become compulsory by law, and the “public” high school is of recent origin.  Until quite recently the people have been left largely to their own resources for the protection of health, and for recreation and social life.

VIEWS OF THE SOCIALISTS

There are those who take the extreme position that government should manage practically everything for us.  Such are the Socialists, who believe that the unequal distribution of wealth and the resulting inequalities in opportunity to satisfy wants are due to the control of industry by a small and essentially selfish capitalistic class.  They believe that all natural resources and all capital should belong to the people jointly, and that the people’s government should control both the production and the distribution of wealth.

It has been objected to the socialist scheme that, since government would still be in the hands of imperfect human beings, it would not be wise enough to accomplish the desired result; that political motives would enter into government management, as they do in government enterprises to-day, and would prevent the achievement of the desired results; and that, the opportunity for private initiative and enterprise having been removed, there would be lacking one of the chief inducements to human progress.

Socialism has made considerable progress in some nations of the world, but it is by no means popular in the United States, although it has many advocates.  We adhere in the main to the principle that government should do things for us only when they could not be so well done by private enterprise, and should control our conduct only so far as to secure equality of personal freedom.  The fact remains, however, that an increasing amount of service is being performed for us by government, and an increasing control exercised by it over private enterprise.

ORGANIZATION FOR SERVICE AND FOR CONTROL