THE HISTORICAL BEGINNING OF SOCIALISM AS AN OSTENSIBLY SCIENTIFIC THEORY
Socialism an unrealised theory. In order to discuss it, it must be defined.
Being of no general interest except as a nucleus of some general movement, we must identify it as a theory which has united large numbers of men in a common demand for change.
As the definite theoretical nucleus of a party or movement, socialism dates from the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was erected into a formal system by Karl Marx.
We must begin our examination of it by taking it in this, its earliest, systematic form.
THE THEORY OF MARX AND THE EARLIER SOCIALISTS SUMMARISED
The doctrine of Marx that all wealth is produced by labour.
His recognition that the possibilities of distribution rest on the facts of production.
His theory of labour as the sole producer of wealth avowedly derived from Ricardo's theory of value.
His theory of capital as consisting of implements of production, which are embodiments of past labour, and his theory of modern capitalism as representing nothing but a gradual abstraction by a wholly unproductive class, of these implements from the men who made them, and who alone contribute anything to their present productive use.