will we employ our energy in the present. The most noted thinkers of the Socialist Party have undertaken such inquiries. The works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels contain the results of many investigations of this sort. August Bebel has given in his book on Woman Under Socialism the result of his work in this field.
Similar inquiries every thinking socialist has probably carried on in private; for everyone who has placed before himself a great goal realizes the need of clearness in regard to the conditions under which he can reach it. The most widely divergent views have been formed and expressed by persons of different position, temperament, insight into economic questions and acquaintance with other non-capitalistic, especially communistic, forms of society. But such differences in the manner of looking at things in no way disturb the compactness and unity of the Socialist Party. It makes little difference how various may be the views of our goal, so long as our eyes are all turned in the same direction—and that the right one.
We might close this chapter here. But so many false notions about the socialist commonwealth have been inherited from the Utopians or invented by ignorant men of letters, that this course would have the appearance of an evasion. Therefore we shall take up certain of then in order to show how the tendencies of our economic development might work themselves out in a socialist community.
