This book, though consisting of negative criticism and analysis
of facts, and not trenching on the domain of practical policy
and constructive suggestion, aims at facilitating a rational
social policy by placing in their true perspective the main
statical facts and dynamic forces of the modern economic world,
which socialism merely confuses.

In pointing out the limitations of labour as a productive
agency, and the dependence of the labourers on a class other
than their own, it does not seek to represent the aspirations of
the former to participate in the benefits of progress as
illusory, but rather to place such aspirations on a scientific
basis, and so to remove what is at present the principal
obstacle that stands in the way of a rational and scientific
social policy.




A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF SOCIALISM




CHAPTER I

THE HISTORICAL BEGINNING OF SOCIALISM AS AN OSTENSIBLY SCIENTIFIC THEORY