"Not the least advantage of basic communism would be the fact that it would tend to put a brake upon industrial enterprise. But such a brake, instead of being in the form of capitalist sabotage, or in the shocking dislocation of a commercial crisis, would be a gradual lessening of the speed of individual parts and a gearing of the whole organization into a steady routine of productivity. Mr. J. A. Hobson has put this matter with his usual insight and wisdom: "Industrial progress would undoubtedly be slower under state-control, because the very object of such control is to divert a larger proportion of human genius and effort from these occupations in order to apply them in producing higher forms of wealth..." However forbidding such a prospect looks to the enterpriser of the old order, humanly speaking it would represent a tremendous gain."
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Academics from EnglandEconomists from EnglandNon-fiction authors from EnglandJournalists from EnglandDemocratic socialists
Original Language: English
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Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (1934) Ch.8 "Orientation"
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._A._Hobson
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J. A. Hobson
John Atkinson Hobson (6 July 1858 – 1 April 1940), or J. A. Hobson, was an English economist, social scientist, lecturer, writer and critic of imperialism.
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