[Footnote 3:  See ch. 16, secs. 3 and 4.]

[Footnote 4:  See above, ch. 16, sec. 5, statistics of receipts from public service enterprises.]

CHAPTER 31

SOME ASPECTS OF SOCIALISM

Sec. 1.  The distribution of incomes.  Sec. 2.  Distribution by force and by status.  Sec. 3.  Social effects of the right to transmit property.  Sec. 4.  Effects of the right to inherit property.  Sec. 5.  Broader social effects of inheritance.  Sec. 6.  Limitations upon intestate inheritance.  Sec. 7.  Some merits of competition.  Sec. 8.  Wide acceptance of competition.  Sec. 9.  “Economic harmonies” and discords.  Sec. 10.  Competition modified by charitable distribution.  Sec. 11.  Competition modified by authoritative distribution.  Sec. 12.  Meanings of socialism.  Sec. 13.  Philosophic socialism.  Sec. 14.  Socialism in action.  Sec. 15.  Origin of the radical socialist party.  Sec. 16.  The two pillars of “scientific” socialism.  Sec. 17.  Aspects of the materialistic philosophy of history.  Sec. 18.  Utopian nature of “scientific” socialism.  Sec. 19.  Its unreal and negative character.  Sec. 20.  Revisionism and opportunism in the socialist party.  Sec. 21.  Alluring claims of party-socialism.  Sec. 22.  Growth and nature of the socialist vote.  Sec. 23.  Economic legislation and the political parties.

Sec. 1. #The distribution of incomes#.  The great economic progress of the past two centuries has been mainly in lines of technical production.  The developing natural sciences and mechanic arts have given men a marvelously increased control over forces and materials.  This has multiplied the quantities of goods of most kinds at the disposal of men, collectively considered.  All men, with rare exceptions, have been gainers; but the increased production has been very unequally distributed among the members of the community.  More and more insistently the plea and the demand have been made for better methods of distribution that will give to the masses of the people a larger share of the goods produced.  Production is largely a problem of the technical arts; distribution is a problem of social economy.

Two aspects of distribution may be distinguished:  functional distribution is the attribution of value (yields) to wealth and labor considered impersonally, as groups of productive agents; and personal distribution is the actual movement of incomes into the control of persons.[1] Personal incomes, whether monetary, real, or psychic, are the sum of a number of elements.  Some parts are due to services performed by the person himself.  When one combs his own hair he is performing for himself a service that is a part of his income.  Benjamin Franklin said it was better to teach a boy to shave himself than to give him a thousand dollars with which to pay barbers for a life-time.  Other parts of income are the uses and fruits of legally