Thorstein Veblen, ‘Some Neglected Points in the Theory of Socialism’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2:3 (1891), pp. 345–62.

The most obtrusive feature of the change demanded by the advocates of socialism is governmental control of the industrial activities of society – the nationalization of industry. Socialist agitators urge that the existing system is necessarily wasteful and industrially inefficient. The modern industrial system is based on the institution of private property under free competition, and it cannot be claimed that these institutions have heretofore worked to the detriment of the material interests of the average member of society. Certainly, the fact that constitutional government – the nationalization of political functions – seems to have been a move in the right direction is not to be taken as proof of the advisability of forthwith nationalizing the industrial functions. The whole system of modern constitutional government in its latest developed forms, in theory at least, and, in a measure, in practice, does not fall under the head of either contract or status.