It is probably in itself, _per se_, not impossible. What is lacking is the will. This makes it practically impossible. Many practical men have regarded the scheme with favor. Indeed, a German architect has prepared and published tables showing the value of the product of an average hour’s work in the building trade, and of the share received by the laborer himself.[170] Their accuracy was not disputed by builders, though they doubted the advisability of letting the laborers know exactly the proportion which constituted their wages. Rodbertus did not claim that it would be the task of a day to carry out this plan, but he thought a state which regarded lightly the expenditure of four hundred millions for military purposes ought not to begrudge one hundred millions at once, and perhaps more hereafter, to banish pauperism and stagnation in trade and industry. He spoke of one or two centuries as necessary to realize these plans. He did not, however, regard private property in land and capital as the ultimate form of their possession, although the above scheme allows both. He thought there were three stages in economic development. In the first, private property in human beings—slavery, serfdom, and vassalage—existed; in the second, that in which we now live, private property in capital—_i.e._, the instruments and means of labor—was a social institution; in the third, private property in income alone was to be allowed. Each one was to enjoy in this third stage the full fruits of his labor. It is needless to say that Rodbertus waged no crusade against land or capital. No one was ever so great a fool as to do that. Every social democrat, even, admits the necessity of both land and capital. He did not, however, believe that it was forever necessary that capitalists and landlords as separate classes should exist. There is the same difference between capital and capitalist as there is between labor and slave. Once, he who waged war on slavery was looked upon as a man who was trying to abolish labor. In the future Rodbertus thinks we will separate in the same manner capital and capitalist, and abolish the capitalist class as we have already abolished the slave-holding class. This does not at all imply equality. Great differences could still exist, but they would be based on merit.