Having shown how wide a social revolution is implied in the socialistic scheme of reconstruction, we may now state (1) that the economic basis of the prevalent socialism is a collectivism which excludes private possession of land and capital, and places them under social ownership in some form or other. In the words of Schäffle, ‘the Alpha and Omega of socialism is the transformation of private competing capital into a united collective capital.’[7] Adolf Wagner’s more elaborate definition of it[8] is entirely in agreement with that of Schäffle. Such a system, while insisting on collective capital, is quite consistent with private property in other forms, and with perfect freedom in the use of one’s own share in the equitable distribution of the produce of the associated labour. A thorough-going socialism demands that this principle should be applied to the capital and production of the whole world; only then can it attain to supreme and perfect realisation. But a sober-minded socialism will admit that the various intermediate stages in which the principle finds a partial application are so far a true and real development of the socialistic idea. Even the best definitions, however, are only of secondary importance; and while we believe that those we have just mentioned give an accurate account of the prevailing socialism, they are arbitrary, abstract, and otherwise open to objection. As we have already seen, the system of Fourier admitted of private capital under social control. The absolute views of the subject now current are due to the excessive love of system characteristic of German thought, and are not consistent either with history or human nature.