266 ARISTO CRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book in assumed the realisation of the very conditions at 

 which socialism aims. For let us consider very 

 briefly what these conditions are. The more care- 

 fully the theoretical admissions and the practical 

 promises of the more recent socialists are examined, 

 the more clear does it become that the sole essential 

 change which socialism would introduce into the 

 existing economic regime would consist not in getting 

 but that he rid of the great man, but in securing his activity on 



works exactly 1t rr>. . ,. . r 



on the terms totally new terms. 1 he socialists aim, in tact, at 



securing the best industrial masters and treating 

 to him. them like the worst servants. This, as social 

 reformers, is their fundamental peculiarity. For 

 whilst they propose to secure an equal distribution 

 of products, they implicitly admit that the producers 

 may be divided into three classes the men of ex- 

 ceptional ability who produce an exceptional amount 

 of wealth ; the mass of average men who produce 

 a normal amount ; and the idle, the refractory, and 

 the worthless, who produce less than the normal 

 amount ; and they propose accordingly to apportion 

 the products as follows. To the average man they 

 would give twice as much as he produces ; to the 

 idle and the worthless man they would give a hundred 

 times as much as he produces ; and to the great man, 

 on whose talents the fortunes of all the others depend, 

 they would give from a hundredth to a thousandth 

 part of what he produces. 

 it now remains Now, whatever the reader may think of this 



to consider . ...... 



whether he economic programme, there is nothing in the present 

 " work, thus far, to show that it is impossible ; and if 



