al skinning; it is only because the common
run of men is better than these profit-hunters that any real and human
things are achieved.

Let us go into this aspect of the question a little more fully,
because it is one that appears to be least clearly grasped by those
who discuss Socialism to-day.

Sec. 2.

This fact must be insisted upon, that most of the work of the world
and all the good work is done to-day for some other motive than gain;
that profit-seeking not only is not the moving power of the world but
that it cannot be, that it runs counter to the doing of effectual work
in every department of life.

It is hard to know how to set about proving a fact that is to the
writer's perception so universally obvious. One can only appeal to the
intelligent reader to use his own personal observation upon the people
about him. Everywhere he will see the property-owner doing nothing,
the profit-seeker busy with unproductive efforts, with the writing of
advertisements, the misrepresentation of goods, the concoction of a
plausible prospectus and the extraction of profits from the toil of
others, while the real necessary work of the world--I don't mean the
labour and toil only, but the intelligent direction, the real planning
and designing and inquiry, the management and the evolution of ideas
and methods, is in the enormous majority of cases done by salaried
individuals working either for a fixed wage and the hope of increments
having no proportional relation to the work done, or for a wage
varying within definite limits. All the engineering design, all
architecture, all our public services,--the exquisite work of our
museum control, for example,--all the big wholesale and retail
businesses, almost all big industrial concerns, mines, estates, all
these things are really in the hands of salaried or quasi-salaried
persons _now_--just as they would be under Socialism. They are only
possible now because all these managers, officials, employees are as a
class unreasonably honest and loyal, are interested in their work and
anxious to do it well, and do not seek _profits_ in every transaction
they handle. Give them even a small measure of security and they are
content with interesting work; they are glad to set aside the urgent
perpetual search for personal gain that Individualists have persuaded
themselves is the ruling motive of mankind, they are glad to set these
aside altogether and, as the phrase goes, "get something don