 Lange begins by granting that regarding humans as egoists concerned only with satisfying their desires may well be an abstraction that allows for some degree of predictive success when it comes to explaining human behaviour in the marketplace. The mistake the materialist makes is “in confounding this abstraction with reality” (Lange 1873–75, 3:233–237). The materialist assumes that the abstraction of the rational egoist is an accurate picture of all of human behaviour and, perhaps even more damagingly, an ethical ideal for how we should behave. Part of the problem is that ethical materialism has a mistaken account of the human good. It claims that “a man is all the happier the more wants he has, if he has at the same time sufficient means for their satisfaction” (Lange 1873–75, 3:239). This is mistaken because what matters is the nature of the want and, so Lange, the way the want comes about and is satisfied (Lange 1873–75, 3:241). Finally serious concerns about issues of distributive justice are avoided by what Lange considers to be quite implausible appeals to “invisible hand” arguments (Lange 1873–75, 3:242–259). As in the case of Marx, this does not mean that Lange denies the usefulness of markets in increasing productivity and encouraging technical innovation. The problem with markets is that they generate inequality and hinder human flourishing.