The forces making for unity are, first, that the ultimate aims proclaimed by the rival groups are largely the same, and secondly that Socialism is essentially not so much a theoretical plan of social reorganization as a class movement arising directly out of the economic divisions in society. It is an attempt to formulate, primarily for the working class, or proletariat, a policy designed to promote at once a larger and more balanced production and a more equal distribution of wealth, and to abolish class distinction based on inequalities of wealth or social opportunity, or on prop erty laws which encourage the accumulation of the means of pro duction in private hands. Its forms and policies differ from place to place, and vary with the movement of events and eco nomic forces ; but through all its changes it retains the funda mental character proclaimed for it in the Communist manifesto of 1848, as a movement based primarily on working-class organiza tion and solidarity. By no means all Socialists, especially in Great Britain, call themselves Marxists; but to this extent, at least, modern Socialism bases itself firmly upon Marx's diagnosis of the social and economic problem.
Socialism has thus necessarily an economic foundation in the working-class movement ; but it is important at the same time to realize that much of its driving force comes from its possession of a certain body of principles shared by Socialists of all schools, and scarcely subject to change with changes in the concrete polit ical and economic situation.
Thus, all Socialists agree that the conduct of industry for private profit produces anti-social results, and challenge the view that the pursuit by each citizen of his private economic interests works out for the good of society on a whole. All Socialists, what
ever their different views of the best forms of administration for Socialist undertakings, agree in holding that the major industries and services should pass under some form of co-ordinated public control, whether in the hands of the State, of local authorities, of self-governing guilds or co-operative societies, or of new forms of organization specially developed for the purpose. They agree in denouncing private control of the vital means of production, and in holding that both the form and the extent of the national out put should be determined by considerations of social need.
Moreover, all Socialists insist that with a change in the con trol of industry will go a change in the motives which operate in the industrial system, and that the motive of public service, at present thwarted and inhibited by private capitalism, will be brought rapidly into play by the change from private to social ownership and control. Within this common ground there is room for wide differences of opinion and of practical policy; but, through all the changes and chances of the Socialistic movements of the world, these unifying conceptions give a common meaning to the vast variety of organizations and policies to which the term Socialist is habitually applied.