that socialism is not likely to attain them.. Some of the ills which
socialism claims to be able to cure are neither attributable to
capitalism, nor open to remedy by socialism. For example, crises and
unemployment are often due to the alternations of good and bad
harvests, to the varying degrees of severity in successive winters, to
new mechanical inventions, and to changes in fashion. These forces are
beyond the effective control of any state. This being so, it is unfair
for socialists to attribute their evil effects to capitalism. It is
likewise unwarranted that socialism should claim to be able
effectively to control these forces.

Other industrial evils are due to the infirmities of human nature, and
to the fact that we are a highly civilized people living more and more
under urban conditions. Crime, vice, and disease are grave social
problems which demand solution, but it is unfair for socialism to
charge these evils against capitalism. Such defects are due partly to
the fact that we are human, and partly to the fact that much of modern
life is highly artificial. Unless socialism contemplates a return to
small, primitive communities, there is nothing to indicate that it
would be able materially to reduce crime, vice, nervous strain, or
ill-health. Indeed, there is no evidence to show that socialism could
make as effective headway against these evils as we are making under
capitalism.

164. DEFECTS OF SOCIALISM OUTWEIGH ITS MERITS.--It is only after the
advantages of a system or an institution have been carefully weighed
against its disadvantages that its value appears. A socialist system
would have some obvious merits. It might eliminate unemployment, since
everyone would be an employee of the state, and, as such, would be
guaranteed against discharge. Charitable aid would probably be