Most of the living leaders of the socialist
movement certainly recognize its fallacy, but it seems so far to have
been found necessary to lean very far in this direction for the
maintenance of socialism as a movement of class protest.
Now this idea of the equality of human beings is, in every respect that
can be tested, absolutely false, and any movement which depends on it
will either be wrecked or, if successful, will wreck the state which it
tries to operate. It will mean the penalization of real worth and the
endowment of inferiority and incompetence. Eugenists can feel no
sympathy for a doctrine which is so completely at variance with the
facts of human nature.
But if it is admitted that men differ widely, and always must differ, in
ability and worth, then eugenics can be in accord with the socialistic
desire for distribution of wealth according to merit, for this will
make it possible to favor and help perpetuate the valuable strains in
the community and to discourage the inferior strains. T. N. Carver sums
up the argument[177] concisely:
"Distribution according to worth, usefulness or service is the system
which would most facilitate the progress of human adaptation. It would,
in the first place, stimulate each individual by an appeal to his own
self-interest, to make himself as useful as possible to the community.
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