Since, then—let us once more repeat it—the {167} progress and maintenance of economic civilisation depend, as even socialists are now beginning to perceive, on the industrial actions of average men being subjected to the control of exceptional men, and since this control can be secured by two methods only—that of the wage-payer and that of the slave-owner—it is evident that all progress and civilisation implies the existence of either one system or the other, and that socialists accordingly, in proportion as they reject the wage-system, are obliged to replace it by what is essentially the system of slavery. We have thus far, however, dealt with but one half of our subject. We have considered merely the means by which any one great man exercises industrial control over the actions of a number of ordinary men. We have still to consider the means by which the most efficient of the great men get this control into their own hands, and take it out of the hands of the less efficient. Under the _régime_ of private capitalism this process is simple. The fitness or efficiency of each great man is according to the acceptability to the public of the goods or services which he offers them. If the public are not pleased with these goods and services, they do not buy or demand them; and the capital of the man by whom they are offered, not being renewed by any money received, melts in his hands, and with it his control over other men’s labour. Meanwhile, by a converse process, the great men who offer goods and services which the public desire {168} and find serviceable, renew and increase by their payments the capital which has been disbursed by him, and renew and increase his control over other men’s labour along with it. Now if the wage-system is the sole alternative to slavery as a means by which the great man controls the actions of the ordinary man, it is still more obviously the sole alternative to slavery as a means by which one great man, in controlling them, shall compete against another great man. Indeed, we may speak still more strongly. We may say not only that it is the sole alternative means, but that it is the sole efficient means. And if we desire a proof of this, all we have to do is to repeat our former procedure, and consider how the socialists propose to supply its place.