The same Socialism that was accused of all this narrowness is suddenly and completely transformed into a movement of such breadth that it has neither a new message nor even a separate existence.
"It is merely a new offshoot of a very old faith indeed," we are now told, "the ideal of the altruistic dreamers of all ages, an awakened sense of brotherhood in men.

Stripped of all its husks, Socialism stands for no other aim than that.

All its other teachings, the public ownership of the land, for example, the nationalization of the means of production and distribution, the economic emancipation of woman, have only program values, as they lead to that one end.

Whether, so stripped, it ceases to be Socialism and becomes merely the advance guard of the world-wide liberal movement is not, of course, a question of more than academic interest."[6] The moment it can no longer be denied that Socialism is a movement, it is at once confused with other movements to which it is fundamentally and irreconcilably opposed.

Surely this is no mere mental error, but a deep-seated and irrepressible aversion to what is to many a disagreeable truth,--the rapid growth and development, in many countries, of political parties and labor organizations more and more seriously determined to annihilate the power of private property over industry and government.
The radical misconceptions above quoted, almost universal where Socialism is still young, are by no means confined to non-Socialists.
Many writers who are supposed, in some degree at least, to voice the movement, are as guilty as those who wholly repudiate it.