Herbert Spencer

[P]eople who, in their corporate capacity, abolish the natural relation between merits and benefits, will presently be abolished themselves. Either they will have to go through the miseries of a slow decay, consequent on the increase of those unfit for the business of life, or they will be overrun by some people who have not pursued the foolish policy of fostering the worst at the expense of the best.

Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology, Vol. III: Part VIII, Industrial Institutions (1896), Chapter XXII: “Socialism.”