ith the object of saving labor, and of
gaining time for the production of further wealth, looking to the
gratification of higher wants. _Such a common interest spurs all to bend
their thoughts towards simplifying and quickening the process of labor.
The ambition to invent and discover is stimulated to the highest pitch:
each will seek to outdo the other in propositions and ideas._[176]

Just the reverse will, accordingly, happen of which the adversaries of
Socialism claim. How many are not the inventors and discoverers who go
to pieces in the capitalist world! How many has it not exploited and
then cast aside! If talent and intellect, instead of property, stood at
the head of bourgeois society, _the larger part of the employers would
have to make room for their workingmen, master mechanics, technical
overseers, engineers, chemists, etc._ These are the men, who, in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, make the inventions, discoveries and
improvements, which the man with the money-bag exploits. How many
thousands of discoverers and inventors have gone to pieces unable to
find the man of means ready to provide the wherewithal for the execution
of their thoughts; how many germs of inventions and discoveries have
been and continue to be nipped by the social stress for bare existence,
is a matter that eludes all calculation. Not the men of head and brain,
but those of large wealth are to-day the masters of the world,--which,
however, does not exclude the occasional and exceptional phenomenon of
brains and wealth being united in one person. The exception only proves
the rule.

Everyone in practical life knows with what suspicion the workingman
to-day regards every improvement, every invention introduced in the
shop. And he is right. He rarely derives any advantage therefrom; it all
accrues to the employer. The workingman is assailed with the fear lest
the new machine, the new improvement cast him off to-morrow as
superfluous. Instead of gladsome applause for an invention that does
honor to man and is fraught with benefit for the race, he only has a
malediction on his lips. We also know, from personal experience, how
many an improvement perceived by the workingman, is not introduced: the
workingman keeps silent, fearing to derive no benefit but only harm from
it. Such are the natural consequences of an antagonism of
interests.[177]

This antagonism of interests is removed in Socialist society. Each
unfolds his faculties in hi