Federico De Roberto Quotes (1861-1927)

“The utopians want all men to be equally rich or well-off, this equality in wealth or comfort, is the promise with which they entice the workers; For if the workers knew that the result of the agitation would be, as we have seen, universal poverty and mediocrity, they would not listen to them. The serious Socialism disavows those novelists of vivid imagination who have represented in their own way the life to come, but if the thinkers do not tell us what it will be, what is the reality they want to realize, we must also, in order to have an idea of it, accept the image that the novelists give of it. Under the socialist system, each citizen will work not on his own account, but on behalf of the whole consortium, and will receive in return for his work a cheque so large that it will not be possible to spend it all. If this is the only difficulty in the future state, we can say that everything will go smoothly: the amount to be spent, the way in which it is spent, will be an insoluble problem.”