702 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



namely, the amelioration of men from the 

 abuses of irresponsible power. And what 

 prodigies of power the captains of industry 

 have now become ! Not a king among the 

 Stuarts or the Hanovers has held such pow- 

 ers. And yet, in the industrial government 

 of the enlightened world to-day, these powers 

 are above every government, imperial or re- 

 publican, far above the puuy power of the 

 masses, and in the hands of stock gamblers 

 who, undej- the glamour of a rising or falling 

 market, can not govern their own miserable 

 passions. 



I do not hope to change any views you 

 may have deliberately reached, even on a 



subject which calls for frequent modification 

 of the smaller details of its statement. But 

 I hope I may ask you to correct in any way 

 you may find convenient my conclusions if 

 they seem wrong in respect to the relation 

 of socialism with competition. The advance 

 of socialism in the last five years throughout 

 the enlighlened world has been so great as to 

 call for careful examination by all thinkers, 

 so that if its teachings are wise and just 

 they may be hastened to power, otherwise 

 that they may be insured their merited fall. 

 Very sincerely yours, 



David J. Lewis. 

 CUJIBEKLAND, Md., J%dy 1',, 1808. 



%iMXtsx's "gKbXt. 



SOCIALISM AND COMPETITION. 

 "TTTE print in our correspondence 

 VV column a coLirteons letter from 

 Mr. David J. Lewis, of Cumberland, 

 Md., who writes to say that, though a 

 socialist, he approves of the position 

 taken in our recent article on Com- 

 petition and the Golden Rule, and 

 that modern socialism, by which he 

 understands the replacing of private- 

 ly owned by publicly owned capital 

 in the production of wealth, does not 

 involve the cessation of competition. 

 This, of course, is a question which 

 we did not raise in the article referred 

 to : we merely sought to meet the a 

 priori objection to competition con- 

 tained in the declaration often made 

 that, if the Golden Rule is right, com- 

 petition must be wrong. We are quite 

 jjrepared to believe that competition 

 will prove to be an indestructible ele- 

 ment of human life, and that, though 

 temporarily driven out by the pitch- 

 fork of socialistic legislation, it will, 

 like Nature, fly back at the first 

 chance. 



Our correspondent's position, we 

 confess, is one which we find it a 

 little difficult to undei-stand. He 

 speaks of the social ownership of 

 capital and the elimination of rent, 

 interest, and profit, but says that these I 



things would not do away with the 

 wage system, or with tlie gaining of 

 immensely more money by the more 

 capable members of the community 

 than by the less capable. There will 

 be Edisons under the new system 

 who, just as at present, will have 

 vast advantages over then* ''poorly 

 equipped competitors." Only — this 

 we infer — they will have to work 

 strictly for wages, and can never ex- 

 ploit their own inventions orbecon:e 

 employers of labor. When the peo- 

 ple take possession of the private 

 capital now employed in industiy 

 and commerce, they will simply com- 

 plete that emancipation, the first step 

 in which was to displace monarchical 

 and aristocratic by democratic in- 

 stitutions. Henceforth capital will 

 never compete with capital, because 

 all capital will be under one owner- 

 ship ; but individuals will go on 

 competing with individuals for the 

 largest shares obtainable from the 

 common fund. 



All this may make a harmonious 

 system in the mind of our corre- 

 spondent, but to us it presents great 

 incongruities. We find it diflicult 

 to realize the Edisons in harness; 

 and we fear it might not be easy to 

 persuade the " poorly equipped moral, 



