William Hurrell Mallock

A Critical Examination of Socialism William Hurrell Mallock

Book Excerpt: ...rds of exceptional ability. This writer maintains that the money rewards of ability can be determined by the opinion of the majority expressing itself through votes and statutes. The writer's typical error. A governing body might enact any laws, but they would not be obeyed unless consonant with human nature. Laws are obliged to conform to the propensities of human nature which it is their office to regulate. Elaborate but unconscious admission of this fact by the writer here quoted himself. The power of democracy in the economic sphere, its magnitude and its limits. The demands of the minority a counterpart of those of the majority. The demand of the great wealth-producer mainly a demand for power. Testimony of a well-known socialist to the impossibility of altering the character of individual demand by outside influence...