Moreover the difficulties of organizing and managing all industries would be enormous. According to the socialist plan, statistics of consumption would be gathered in advance, the idle changes of fashion would of course disappear, and production could be accurately calculated. But aside from the problem of securing an honest and efficient administration, the work of organizing industry from a centralized bureau would probably prove insurmountable. The distribution of the labor force among various employments suggests another difficulty. Under individualism the necessary distribution takes place through the agency of wage payments and the choice of an occupation is left free to the individual. As the wage-system would disappear with the abolition of private capital, some other means 170 would have to be devised, as allotment by the Government. But more important would be the selection of the managers of industry; competition provides a process whereby the inefficient are eliminated and the able put in charge. As socialism would be an industrial democracy the selection of the captains of industry under that system would probably be made by election. Is it likely that the voters would place over themselves the ablest, that is the strictest, most economical, and most energetic man? Taking men as we find them today, this may well be doubted.
But it is as a scheme of distribution that socialism has been most warmly urged. The inequalities and injustices of present methods are pointed out and a more just system demanded. Socialists themselves, however, are not agreed as to what constitutes justice. Needs and merits have both been urged as bases of distribution, but suffer from vagueness and difficulty in administration; most socialists today agree that equality of income would best meet the requirements of justice. They claim that talented persons have been endowed by nature with their abilities and should use them as a trust for society and not expect greater rewards than their less talented brothers. To this individualists answer that the practical question is, how to secure the greatest exercise of these gifts, and that is now done by appealing to the motive of self-interest. Some writers even go further and assert that the desire for inequality is the chief stimulus to invention and enterprise. A crucial point in every socialistic scheme is the determination of value under such a system; most socialists follow Marx and say that this should be determined by the “socially necessary labor time” required for the production of an article. Such a measure leaves out of account entirely the aspect of utility or demand, and would clearly be inadequate. Prices would be fixed by the State and would be calculated in labor time, which would probably be 171 represented by labor checks, which would constitute the media of exchange of the socialistic society.