at present offered them is the possession of some exceptional share of
the wealth to the production of which their efforts have exceptionally
contributed; and, hence, since it is the object of all socialistic
schemes to render the achievement of such a reward impossible, we shall
find that the ultimate problem for socialists of the modern school is
how to discover another which in practice will be equally efficacious.

But though this is the ultimate problem, it is very far from being the
only one which the theory of socialism in its modern form raises.
Directive ability, which is a compound of many faculties, varies greatly
in degree and kind. Its value, if tested by the results of its actual
application to labour, would in some cases be immense, in other cases
very small, and in others it would be a minus quantity. Thus, even if we
suppose that the exercise of it is so far its own reward that all who
believe themselves to possess it--and these are a very large
number--will, for the mere pleasure of exercising it, be eager to gain
the positions which will make its exercise possible, the problem would
remain of how to discriminate those who would, as industrial directors,
achieve the greatest successes, from those who would bring about nothing
but relative or absolute failure. This problem of how, under a régime of
socialism, ability could be so tested that the practical means of
direction could be granted to or withheld from it, according to its
actual efficiency, is the problem which we will consider first; for
though of secondary importance as compared with the problem of motive,
it is in more immediate connection with the details of daily business.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] The economic condition of the great mass of the population, which
this "up-to-date" socialist contemplates, is precisely analogous to that