But certain brands of Socialism can be described if not defined. The one common characteristic is abolition of the “capitalistic organization” of industry. If we call this _A_, then we can say that all schemes of Socialism can be reduced to the general formula _A_ + _x_, where _x_ is a symbol standing for a very large number of variables which comprise the methods by which the capitalist is to be extinguished; the terms on which the present capitalists will be compensated or otherwise expropriated; the persons or authority in whom the means of production—and probably there should be added distribution and exchange—will be vested; the persons or body to be responsible for the organization of industry and for its control; the means by which capital will be found and prices regulated; the relation in which the new industrial system will stand to the community, and the various socialized industries to one another. These are the practical points to which attention should be directed rather than academic definitions. Of the term “capitalism” and what is implied by it all kinds of definitions are current. Socialists of different schools have their own definitions embellished with epithets which vary in virulence according to their particular trend of thought. Employers too have their definitions, but it will be sufficient for our purposes if we take capitalism to mean the existing scheme of industrial organization. The basic vices of capitalism, according to all Socialists, are that it is a system under which the owner of the capital employed in industry possesses and controls the whole business of production and sale of the output, buying, just as he buys raw materials for his business, the labour power of the workman, paying him as little for it as possible, and that in the form of a wage merely in respect of the time he is at work; a system under which the employer maintains a reserve of unemployed labour in order to provide for the variations in trade, while recognizing no responsibility in respect of the workman at times when the employer cannot or is not prepared to provide him with work. Under such conditions the workman is said to occupy a quasi-servile status, to be a wage-slave and entitled to no voice at all in the control of the industry. That, without the usual garnish of abuse, is probably a fair description of the present organization of industry as it is envisaged by the Socialist. The two great incidents of capitalism which the Socialist therefore seeks to eradicate are: the private ownership of land and capital; and the employment on a wage-basis of hired labour. If only capitalism could be abolished the workman would no longer see his employer and other capitalists appropriating, in the shape of rent and interest and profits, all the value of the product which the labourer is said to create over and above the amount of his wages.