Quote of the day: the state v's socialism

Mutual, co-operative and non-profit enterprise are nothing other than a free society's way of responding to certain contractual hazards. The state is their competitor. It is not sufficiently appreciated that the greatest threat to socialism in its benign microeconomic form - the sharing of ownership between groups of workers, consumers, residents, parents, savers and borrowers - is the growth of the state itself.

Martin Ricketts, "The Many Ways of Governance: Perspectives in the control of the firm", London: The Social Affairs Unit, 1999, p.44.