that as a matter of fact the possession of material welfare will be attained by every separate individual rather through competition and struggle (as indeed is at present the case) than by just demands.
In order to attain justice, while people are striving after personal welfare, it would be necessary to have people able to define the measure of worldly goods which should in justice fall to the share of each; and also people with power to prevent men profiting by more than their just share. There are, and always have been, men who have undertaken both these duties; they are our rulers. But up to the present time neither in monarchies nor in republics have there been found men who, in defining the measure of goods and distributing them amongst men, have not transgressed this measure for themselves and their assistants, and thus spoilt the work they were called to, and undertook to do. So that this means is already recognised by all to be unsatisfactory. And now some people say that it is necessary to abolish these governments and to establish governments of another kind, chiefly for the purpose of superintending economic affairs,—which governments, acknowledging that all capital and land are common property, will administer the labour of men and distribute earthly welfare, according to their labour,—or, as some say, according to their needs.
All attempts at this kind of organisation, hitherto made, have been unsuccessful.
