Socialism a Critical Analysis

uable service, lessened though the service may be by the wholesale and indiscriminating character of the denunciation. Candid recognition of the full extent of existing evils is the indispensable first step in progress and reform. Yet the indictment recorded fails to carry conviction to the impartial observer. It is beyond doubt one-sided and exaggerated, the truth it contains nullified by the truth it neglects. The socialist has painted existing conditions too black. He has grudged full recognition of the immensely strong points of our industrial system. He directs his shafts against a mythical extreme individualism, ignoring the restraining social forces implicit in the existing order, forces fully as characteristic as the scope and play which in the main are permitted to individual ambition and individual initiative. He has thrown the undivided blame ' for all the world's misery and failure on social institutions, on the tools men use, rather than on the limitations of the purely human men who use them. The socialist has painted too black a picture. It is not merely that he has contrasted the dreamed ideals of socialism with the actualities of the competitive order; he has viewed those actualities out of all perspective. In his survey of society the one instance of failure is ever present to his gaze, the nine of success do not come within therange of his misery-focused lens. He cannot see the woods for the few decaying branches on the trees. His ear is attu...