Free competition, therefore, has only the following meaning: To the State all rank as its equal children, and every one can scud and run to _earn the State's goods and largess_. Therefore all do chase after havings, holdings, possessions (be it of money or offices, titles of honor, etc.), after the _things_.
In the mind of the commonalty every one is possessor or "owner." Now, whence comes it that the most have in fact next to nothing? From this, that the most are already joyful over being possessors at all, even though it be of some rags, as children are joyful in their first trousers or even the first penny that is presented to them. More precisely, however, the matter is to be taken as follows. Liberalism came forward at once with the declaration that it belonged to man's essence not to be property, but proprietor. As the consideration here was about "man," not about the individual, the how-much (which formed exactly the point of the individual's special interest) was left to him. Hence the individual's egoism retained room for the freest play in this how-much, and carried on an indefatigable competition.
However, the lucky egoism had to become a snag in the way of the less fortunate, and the latter, still keeping its feet planted on the principle of humanity, put forward the question as to the how-much of possession, and answered it to the effect that "man must have as much as he requires."
Will it be possible for _my_ egoism to let itself be satisfied with that? What "man" requires furnishes by no means a scale for measuring me and my needs; for I may have use for less or more. I must rather have so much as I am competent to appropriate.
Competition suffers from the unfavorable circumstance that the _means_ for competing are not at every one's command, because they are not taken from personality, but from accident. Most are _without means_, and for this reason _without goods_.
Hence the Socialists demand the _means_ for all, and aim at a society that shall offer means. Your money value, say they, we no longer recognize as your "competence"; you must show another competence,--to wit, your _working force_. In the possession of a property, or as "possessor," man does certainly show himself as man; it was for this reason that we let the possessor, whom we called "proprietor," keep his standing so long. Yet you possess the things only so long as you are not "put out of this property."