The State in Business
Or the Collectivist State in the Making (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The State in Business: Or the Collectivist State in the Making<br><br>The only claim that I care to make for this book is that it is not academic. To some readers that will be a great drawback; to others, an advantage.<br><br>Although taking no particular side in politics, I, like the Persian poet -<br><br>"... when young did eagerly frequent<br>Doctor and Saint, and heard great argument."<br><br>I soon observed that the supporter-of-things-as-they-are, when pressed, would invariably reply to the contention that the community itself should administer a service or carry on an industry, that while it would be very nice if it could be done, it was not practicable; whereupon the advocate-of-things-as-they-ought-to-be would proceed volubly to explain how, in theory, the whole thing was as simple as losing money on the Stock Exchange. Unlearned in all these theories, but with some practical acquaintance of foreign business affairs, I would marvel how it was that neither party to the argument was aware that in some country or the other the precise thing regarding the possibility of which they were arguing was actually in existence. Theorists - even great theorists - are apt to ignore facts.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.