would "leave to starve to death, if they so elected, unless somebody
wished to keep them alive, as happens at the present time."

The difference between socialists with regard to this question, however,
does nothing in itself to discredit the socialistic theory as a whole.
It has merely the effect of providing us with two sets of witnesses
instead of one to the truth of a common principle, which is recognised
by both equally. One set declares that the ability of the most competent
men must direct the labours of the majority by means of an appeal to
their fears; the other declares that the same result must be
accomplished, as it is at the present time, by an appeal to their choice
and prudence. In either case it is admitted that the separate manual
tasks performed by the majority of the citizens must be directed and
co-ordinated by the most competent minds somehow; and that the process
of direction must have some system at the back of it, by means of which
the orders issued to each labourer can be enforced--this system being
either a continuation of that which is in existence now, or another
which would to most people be in many ways more distasteful.

The socialists of to-day, in admitting that such is the case, have at
last placed themselves in a line with the sober realities of life, and
in doing so have assimilated their own analysis of production to the
analysis set forth in the beginning of the present volume.

Apart from the fact that, according to their constructive programme,
private capitalism would be abolished, and the sole capitalist would be
the state, the socialistic system of production, as they have now come
to conceive of it, would, in respect of the vital forces involved, be
merely the existing system continued under another name, with a
directing minority composed of exceptional men on the one hand, and a