Since socialists are the reformers who, in dealing with objects aimed at, are least apt to be daunted by practical difficulties, let us see how equality of opportunity in business life is conceived of and described by them. The general contention of socialists in this respect is, says one of their best-known American spokesmen,[26] "that the fact that capital is now in the hands of private persons gives them an unfair advantage over those who own nothing," for capital consists of the implements of advantageous production; and socialists, he says, would secure an equality of industrial opportunity for all by "vesting the ownership of the means of production in the state"; the result of which procedure would, he goes on, be this: "that every one would have his own canoe, and it would be up to each to do his own paddling." Now, purists in thought and argument might make it a subject of complaint, perhaps, that the writer, as soon as he reaches a vital part of his argument, should lapse into the imagery of an old music-hall song. But such an objection would be very much misplaced, for the ideas entertained by socialists as to this particular point closely resemble those which make music-hall songs popular. They consist of familiar images which are accepted without being analysed; and the image of man seated in an industrial canoe of his own, and paddling it just as he pleases without reference to anybody else, very admirably represents the lot which socialists promise to everybody, and which dwells as a possibility in the imagination of even their serious thinkers. But let us take this dream in connection with facts of the modern world, which these men, in much of their reasoning, themselves recognise as unalterable, and we shall see it give place to realities of a very different aspect.