Finally, we come to the charge that Marx taught that "all productive effort is absolutely equal in productivity." Incredible as it may seem, it is nevertheless a fact that everything Marx has to say upon the subject is directly opposed to this notion, and that, as we shall see later on, his famous theory of value is not only not dependent upon a belief in the equal productivity of all productive effort, but would be completely shattered by it. Not only Marx, but also Mill, Ricardo, and Smith, his great predecessors, recognized the fact that all labor is not equally productive. Of course, it requires no special genius to demonstrate this. That a poor mechanic with antiquated tools will produce less in a given number of hours than an expert mechanic with good tools, for example, is too obvious for comment. The Marx assailed by Mr. Mallock, and numerous critics like him, is a myth. The real Marx they do not touch--hence the futility of their work. The Marx they attack is a man of straw, not the immortal thinker. Endowed "With just enough of learning to misquote," their assaults are vain. VI Having thus disposed of some of the more prevalent criticisms of Marx as an economist, we are ready for a definite, consecutive statement of the economic theory of modern Socialism. First, however, a word as to the term "scientific" as commonly applied to Marxian Socialism. Even some of the friendliest of Socialist critics have contended that the use of the term is pretentious, bombastic, and altogether unjustified. From a certain narrow point of view, this appears to be an unimportant matter, and the vigor with which Socialists defend their use of the term seems exceedingly foolish, and accountable for only as a result of enthusiastic fetish worship--the fetish, of course, being Marx.