The fact that the fundamental arguments of this volume were disseminated throughout the United States, not only at the meetings addressed, but also in all the leading newspapers, has had the valuable result, by means of the mass of criticisms which they elicited, of illustrating the manner in which socialists attempt to meet them; and has enabled me to revise, with a view to farther clearness, certain passages which were intentionally or unintentionally misunderstood, and also to emphasise the curious confusions of thought into which various critics have been driven in their efforts to controvert or get round them. I may specially mention a small volume by Mr. G. Wilshire of New York--a leading publisher and disseminator of socialistic literature--which was devoted to examining my own arguments seriatim. To the principal criticisms of this writer allusions will be found in the following pages. Most of my socialistic opponents (though to this rule there were amusing exceptions) wrote, according to their varying degrees of intelligence and education, with remarkable candour, and also with great courtesy. Mr. Wilshire, in particular, whilst seeking to refute my arguments as a whole, admitted the force of many of them; and did his best, in his elaborate _resume_ of them, to state them all fairly. The contentions, and even the phraseology of socialists are in all countries (with the possible exception of Russia) identical. All are vitiated by the same distinctive errors, and it is indifferent whether, for purposes of detail criticism, we go to speakers and writers in this country or America. Except for the correction of a few verbal errors which have escaped my notice in the American edition, and which obscure the meaning of perhaps four or five sentences, for the introduction of a few additional notes, and for the translation of dollars and cents into pounds and shillings, the English and the American editions are the same. W. H. M. _January, 1908._ CONTENTS CHAPTER I THE HISTORICAL BEGINNING OF SOCIALISM AS AN OSTENSIBLY SCIENTIFIC THEORY Socialism an unrealised theory. In order to discuss it, it must be defined. Being of no general interest except as a nucleus of some general movement, we must identify it as a theory which has united large numbers of men in a common demand for change. As the definite theoretical nucleus of a party or movement, socialism dates from the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was erected into a formal system by Karl Marx. We must begin our examination of it by taking it in this, its earliest, systematic form. CHAPTER II THE THEORY OF MARX AND THE EARLIER SOCIALISTS SUMMARISED The doctrine of Marx that all wealth is produced by labour. His recognition that the possibilities of distribution rest on the facts of production.