fare by the collective control of
industry. While the advocates of government regulation give their main
attention to problems of production, the Socialists emphasize the
importance of the proper distribution of products to the consumers,
and would exercise authority in the partition of the rewards of labor.
They propose that collective ownership of the means of production take
the place of private ownership, that industry be managed by
representatives of the people, that products be distributed on some
just basis yet to be devised by the people. All that will be left to
them as individuals will be the right to consume and the possession of
material things not essential to the socialistic economy. Certain
Socialist theories go farther than this, but this is the essence of
Socialism. Socialists vary, also, as to the use of revolutionary or
evolutionary means of obtaining their ends.

The main objections that are made to the theory of Socialism are: (1)
That it is contrary to nature, which develops character and progress
through struggle; (2) that private property is a natural right, and
that it would be unjust to deprive individuals of what they have
secured through thrift and foresight, even in the interest of the
whole of society; (3) that an equitable distribution of wealth would
be impossible in any arbitrary division; (4) that no government can
possibly conduct successfully such huge enterprises as would fall to
it; (5) that Socialism would destroy private incentive and enterprise
by taking away the individual rewards of effort; (6) that a
socialistic regime would be as unendurable an interference with
individual liberty as any absolutist or paternal government that the
past has seen.

380. =Educated Public Opinion.=--The second group of theorists is
composed of those who would get rid of prohibitions and regulations as
far as possible, and trust to the force of an educated public opinion
to maintain a high level of social order and efficiency. It is a part
of the theory that constraint exercised by a government established by
law marks a stage of lower social development than restraint exercised
by the force of public opinion. But it must be an educated public
opinion, trained to appreciate the importance of society and its
claims upon the individual, to function rationally instead of
impulsively, and to seek the methods that will be most useful and
least expensive for the social body. This training of public opi