There have been many "short-cuts" proposed to the solution of social problems. Among these the various schemes for reorganizing human society and industry, brought together under the general name of "socialism," have attracted most attention and deserve most serious consideration. In criticizing the most conspicuous of these schemes of social reconstruction, the so-called "scientific socialism," it should be understood at the outset that there is no intention of questioning the general aims of the socialists. Those aims, as voiced by their best representatives, are in entire accord with sound science, religion, and ethics. That humanity should gain collective control over the conditions of its existence is the ultimate and highest aim of all science, all education, and all government. No student of sociology doubts that human society has steadily moved, though with interruptions, toward a larger control over its own processes; and no sane man doubts that such collective control over the conditions of existence is desirable. These general aims, which the socialists share with all workers for humanity, are not in question. What is in question are the specific means or methods by which the socialists propose to reconstruct human society--to gain collective control over the means of existence. In order to criticize socialism we must see a little more narrowly what socialism is and what it proposes to do. Socialism Defined.--As a recent socialist writer has declared, socialism, like Christianity, is a term which has come to have no definite meaning. It is used by all sorts of people to cover all sorts of vague and indefinite schemes to improve or revolutionize society. [Footnote: It has been said that the word "socialism," as currently used, has four distinct meanings: (1) Utopian socialism, i.e., schemes like More's Utopia; (2) the socialist party and its program, i.e., "the socialization of the instruments of production;" (3) The Marxist doctrine of social evolution, i.e., "the materialistic conception of history;" (4) a vague body of beliefs of the working classes, more or less derived from (2) and (3). It is of course only socialism in the second and third senses which is discussed in this chapter.] Such a vague conception would, of course, be impossible of scientific criticism. But fortunately the word historically has come to have a fairly clear and definite meaning. It has come to stand for the social and political program of a party, the Social-Democratic party of Germany and other European states. Karl Marx and his associates were the founders of this party, hence historical socialism is synonymous with Marxian socialism, and we shall so use the word. The cardinal tenet or principle of the socialist party is the public ownership of all capital, that is, of the means of production. Certain other things are, however, involved in this, and we may define the full program of Marxian