Distribution, laws and employers

The practical question, Shaw says, is how a country's income should be shared out. Modern farms and factories could produce enough for equal shares for everyone.

But there are limits. Much of what machinery produces, like needles and matches, cannot be eaten. And Nature may strike back if chemists exploit her too greedily.

Nature takes about twelve hours of our day; much of the rest must go to earning a living. Laws, police, courts and taxes restrict us too, though fair laws actually increase our freedom, by protecting us from others.

Closer still to our daily lives are landlords and employers. They can decide where you live, what you wear, and whether you have work at all: more power over you than any dictator.

The strike is the worker's only weapon. But a general strike would be madness, Shaw says: the workers would starve first.