Desirable as would be such an addition to the remuneration of labour, it could never be realised through the process of confiscation. The owners of land and capital would be sufficiently powerful to defeat any such simple scheme of setting up the collectivist commonwealth. They constitute probably a majority of the adults of our population, and their economic advantages would make them much stronger relatively than their numbers.[126] Ethically the policy of confiscation would be, on the whole, sheer robbery. To be sure, not all owners of land and capital have a valid claim to all their possessions, but practically all of them hold the greater part of their wealth by some kind of just title. Much land and capital that was originally acquired by unjust means has become morally legitimatised by the title of prescription. The majority of present day Socialists seem to advocate at least partial compensation.[127] But this plan does not seem to offer any considerable advantage over complete confiscation. As regards morality, it would differ only in the degree of its injustice; as regards expediency, it would be at best of doubtful efficacy. If the capitalists were given only a small fraction of the value of their holdings they would oppose the change with quite as much determination as though they were offered nothing; if they were paid almost the full value of their possessions there would be no substantial gain to the community from the transfer; if they were compensated at a figure somewhere between these two extremes their resistance would still be more costly to the State than the extra amount required to make full compensation.