“Socialism is common ownership of natural resources and public utilities, and the common operation of all industries for the general good.  Socialism is opposed to monopoly, that is, to private ownership of land and the instruments of labor, which is indirect ownership of men; to the wages system, by which labor is legally robbed of a large part of the product of labor; to competition with its enormous waste of effort and its opportunities for the spoliation of the weak by the strong.  Socialism is industrial democracy.  It is the government of the people by the people and for the people, not in the present restricted sense, but as regards all the common interests of men.  Socialism is opposed to oligarchy and monarchy, and therefore to the tyrannies of business cliques and money kings.  Socialism is for freedom, not only from the fear of force, but from the fear of want.  Socialism proposes real liberty, not merely the right to vote, but the liberty to live for something more than meat and drink.

“Socialism is righteousness in the relations of men.  It is based on the fundamentals of religion, the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of men.  It seeks through association and equality to realize fraternity.  Socialism will destroy the motives which make for cheap manufacturers, poor workmanship and adulterations; it will secure the real utility of things.  Use, not exchange, will be the object of labour.  Things will be made to serve, not to sell.  Socialism will banish war, for private ownership is back of strife between men.  Socialism will purify politics, for private capitalism is the great source of political corruption.  Socialism will make for education, invention and discovery; it will stimulate the moral development of men.  Crime will have lost most of its motive and pauperism will have no excuse.  That,” said Shirley, as she concluded, “is socialism!”

Ryder shrugged his shoulders and rose to go.

“Delightful,” he said ironically, “but in my judgment wholly Utopian and impracticable.  It’s nothing but a gigantic pipe dream.  It won’t come in this generation nor in ten generations if, indeed, it is ever taken seriously by a majority big enough to put its theories to the test.  Socialism does not take into account two great factors that move the world—­men’s passions and human ambition.  If you eliminate ambition you remove the strongest incentive to individual effort.  From your own account a socialistic world would be a dreadfully tame place to live in—­ everybody depressingly good, without any of the feverish turmoil of life as we know it.  Such a world would not appeal to me at all.  I love the fray—­the daily battle of gain and loss, the excitement of making or losing millions.  That is my life!”

“Yet what good is your money to you?” insisted Shirley.  “You are able to spend only an infinitesimal part of it.  You cannot even give it away, for nobody will have any of it.”