Since socialists are the reformers who, in dealing with objects aimed at, are least apt to be daunted by practical difficulties, let us see how equality of opportunity in business life is conceived of and described by them.  The general contention of socialists in this respect is, says one of their best-known American spokesmen,[26] “that the fact that capital is now in the hands of private persons gives them an unfair advantage over those who own nothing,” for capital consists of the implements of advantageous production; and socialists, he says, would secure an equality of industrial opportunity for all by “vesting the ownership of the means of production in the state”; the result of which procedure would, he goes on, be this:  “that every one would have his own canoe, and it would be up to each to do his own paddling.”

Now, purists in thought and argument might make it a subject of complaint, perhaps, that the writer, as soon as he reaches a vital part of his argument, should lapse into the imagery of an old music-hall song.  But such an objection would be very much misplaced, for the ideas entertained by socialists as to this particular point closely resemble those which make music-hall songs popular.  They consist of familiar images which are accepted without being analysed; and the image of man seated in an industrial canoe of his own, and paddling it just as he pleases without reference to anybody else, very admirably represents the lot which socialists promise to everybody, and which dwells as a possibility in the imagination of even their serious thinkers.  But let us take this dream in connection with facts of the modern world, which these men, in much of their reasoning, themselves recognise as unalterable, and we shall see it give place to realities of a very different aspect.

To judge from our author’s language, one would suppose that modern capital was made up entirely of separate little implements like sewing-machines, and that every one would, if the state were the sole capitalist, receive on application a machine of the same grade, which he might take away with him, and use or break in a corner.  Now, if modern capital were really of this nature, the state no doubt might conceivably do something like what the writer suggests, in the way of dealing out similar industrial opportunities to everybody.  But, as he himself is perfectly well aware, the distinctive feature of capital in the modern world is one which renders any such course impossible.  Modern capital, as a whole, in so far as it consists of implements, consists not of implements which can be used by each user separately.  It consists of enormous mechanisms, with the works and structures pertaining to them, which severally require to be used by thousands of men at once, and which no one of the number can use without reference to the operations of the others.  If the state were to acquire the ownership of all the steel-mills at Pittsburg, how could it do more than is done by their present owners, to confer on each of the employes any kind of position analogous to that of a man “who has his own canoe”?  The state could just as easily perform the literal feat of cutting up the Lusitania into a hundred thousand dinghys, in each of which somebody would enjoy the equal opportunity of paddling a passenger from Sandy Hook to Southampton.