as possible," says Mr. Spargo, "for a government to
exploit the workers in the interests of a privileged class as it is
for private individuals, or quasi-private corporations, to do so.
Germany with her State-owned railroads, or Austria-Hungary and
Russia with their great government monopolies, are not more
Socialistic, but less so than the United States, where these things
are owned by individuals or corporations. The United States is
nearer Socialism for the reason that its political institutions
have developed farther towards pure democracy than those of the
other countries named.... The real _motif_ of Socialism is not
merely to change the form of industrial organization and ownership,
but to eliminate exploitation.... Every abuse of capitalism calls
forth a fresh installment of legislation restrictive of personal
liberty, with an army of prying officials. Legislators keep busy
making laws, judges keep busy interpreting and enforcing them, and
a swarm of petty officials are kept busy attending to this
intricate machine of popular government. In sober truth, it must be
said that capitalism has created, and could not exist without, the
very bureaucracy it charges Socialism with attempting to foist upon
the nation."[301]

The Socialists are as far from proposing anything resembling a system of
mechanical and absolute equality as they are from attacking personal or
industrial liberty. Ninety-nine and one half per cent of the product of
the men of the different social classes, says Edward Bellamy, "is due in
every case to advantages afforded by modern civilization."[302] So that
if one man is twice as capable as another, it merely raises the
proportion of the product due to his personal efforts from one half of
one per cent to one per cent. International Socialism realizes with
Bellamy that the product is social in far greater proportion than is at
present recognized, but it does not deny that there are cases in which
the contribution of the individual is more important even than
everything that can be attributed to his social advantages. It does not
propose, therefore, to level incomes. It is true that this communist
principle of Bellamy's has a wide practical application both in the
Socialist scheme of things and in present-day society, as, for example,
in free schools and parks, and in the "State Socialist" program. But the