IV. SOCIALISM? Socialism promises, according to its adherents, to accomplish all the good results of government regulation, while obviating its defects. It behooves us, then, to give it careful and unbiased attention. The movement toward it is, at least, one of the most significant and widespread movements of our times, evoking on the one hand extraordinary enthusiasm and loyalty, so that to millions of men it is almost a religion, and on the other hand deep distrust, impatient contempt, or bitter hostility. Moreover, the movement is steadily growing; we must recognize that it is not a fad, but a deep current, an international brotherhood that numbers in its ranks many able and intellectual men. We may here disregard the inadequate economic theories that have hampered its earlier years, and the Utopian dreams that have been published under its name, and consider it only as a practical program for remedying our acknowledged and serious industrial evils. The gist of the socialist proposal is that all industry shall be made democratic, as government is now becoming democratic all over the earth. All plants and all capital are to be owned by the State, and all business run as the Post-Office is run, or as the Panama Canal was built. The managers of each industry are to be chosen from the ranks, according to their fitness, for proved efficiency and knowledge of the business. Everybody will be upon a salary, and the opportunity of increasing personal profits by lowering wages, cheating the public, neglecting evil conditions of production, or damaging rivals, will be absent. Thus, instead of trying by an elaborate system of checks to keep within due bounds the greed of man, the possibility of satisfying that greed is definitely removed, and all earnings made proportionate to industriousness and skill. We proceed to summarize the advantages that, it is urged, would follow the inauguration of this industrial democracy: (1) All industries could be organized and centralized. A vast amount of human effort could be saved, and waste eliminated. Business would no longer, as so often now, be hampered for lack of funds to carry out plans. A special staff could be retained to invent and apply new ideas. In short, just as the trusts now are much more efficient and economical than the small concerns they have superseded, so the completely organized industries of a socialistic regime would be, we are told, in a position to double human efficiency. If the postal business were open to competition, there can be no doubt that we should be paying higher rates today for a much less efficient service. If it were a private monopoly, some one would probably be getting enormous profits out of it profits which now go back into extending the service. The labor saved by industrial unification would be available for a thousand other undertakings that cry to be carried out.