The economic doctrine was that, as a matter of fact, the only producers of wealth are the mass of manual labourers, and that, with certain unimportant exceptions, the economic values produced by all labourers are equal.

Hence he argued that all wealth ought to go to the labourers, and that all labourers were entitled to approximately equal shares of it.

The later socialists aim at reaching the same conclusion, and they start with two doctrines, a moral and an economic, likewise.

Having arrived, however, at a truer theory of production--having recognised that labour is not the sole producer, and that some men produce incalculably more than others--they have, in order to support their demand for an equality of possession, been obliged to supplement their repudiation of the economic theory of their predecessors, by repudiating their theory of eternal justice also, and introducing another of a wholly opposite character.

While Karl Marx contended that, in justice, production and possession were inseparable, the later socialists contend that there is no connection between them, and that it is perfectly easy to convert to this moral view every human being who is likely to suffer by its adoption.