I think the point is to not put one's hopes on the natural tendencies of any system, but to apply "judicious foresight," to borrow the phrase from J.S. Mill's Principles of Political Economy.

" Mechanical inventions... have not yet begun to effect those great changes in human destiny, which it is in their nature and in their futurity to accomplish. Only when, in addition to just institutions, the increase of mankind shall be under the deliberate guidance of judicious foresight, can the conquests made from the powers of nature by the intellect and energy of scientific discoverers become the common property of the species, and the means of improving and elevating the universal lot..."