The socialists as their own critics when they denounce the actual motives of the able man as he is and as they say he always has been.  They attack the typically able man of all periods as a monster of congenital selfishness, and it is men of this special type whom they propose to transform suddenly into monsters of self-abnegation.

        Their want of faith in the efficacy of their own moral suasion
        and their proposal to supplement this by the ballot.

CHAPTER X

        Individualmotive and democracy

        Exaggerated powers ascribed to democracy by inaccurate thinkers.

        An example from an essay by a recent philosophic thinker, with
        special reference to the rewards of exceptional ability.

        This writer maintains that the money rewards of ability can be
        determined by the opinion of the majority expressing itself
        through votes and statutes.

        The writer’s typical error.  A governing body might enact any
        laws, but they would not be obeyed unless consonant with human
        nature.

        Laws are obliged to conform to the propensities of human nature
        which it is their office to regulate.

        Elaborate but unconscious admission of this fact by the writer
        here quoted himself.

        The power of democracy in the economic sphere, its magnitude and
        its limits.  The demands of the minority a counterpart of those
        of the majority.

        The demand of the great wealth-producer mainly a demand for
        power.

        Testimony of a well-known socialist to the impossibility of
        altering the character of individual demand by outside
        influence.

CHAPTER XI

        Christiansocialism as A substitute for secular democracy

        The meaning of Christian socialism, as restated to-day by a
        typical writer.

        His just criticism of the fallacy underlying modern ideas of
        democracy.  The impossibility of equalising unequal men by
        political means.

Christian socialism teaches, he says, that the abler men should make themselves equal to ordinary men by surrendering to them the products of their own ability, or else by abstaining from its exercise.

        The author’s ignorance of the nature of the modern industrial
        process.  His idea of steel.

        He confuses the production of wealth on a great scale with the
        acquisition of wealth when produced.

        The only really productive ability which he distinctly
        recognises is that of the speculative inventor.