Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/232

218 performs an operation for which he receives $10,000, a lawyer receives the same sum as his retaining fee, or a prima donna is paid $5,000 for one evening's performance, these amounts do not represent the price paid by the mass of people as the legitimate and voluntarily proffered reward for individual exertion. They are the mathematical demonstration of the fact that a small number of millionaires are living in the civilized world, with no means of judging of the real value of any work, because their riches are not the result of their own labor; they satisfy every one of their whims without regard to its cost, and fight among themselves for the possession of certain things, a painting for instance, or the song of a certain prima donna, the service of this physician or lawyer and of none other—willing to pay any price to satisfy their caprice. Aside from the rare instances of success in the pursuit of the liberal professions above described, the rule is without exception that a great fortune necessarily owes its origin and growth to the plundering of one's fellow-men. When the real estate inherited by a certain man increases in value, it is not the result of his own exertions but of the fact that the number of working-men torn from the land and soil is constantly increasing, that all forms of industry are growing in extent, that the cities are becoming more and more populous, that the labor of civilized society is being confined more and more to manufacturing industries, thus causing the price of provisions to risk in the same proportion as the price of manufactured articles is falling—in short, because other men are working, not because the landed proprietor exerts himself. When the speculator amasses millions it is by the abuse of a superior strength, either of information, sagacity or of combination, with which he deprives the laboring and classes of their property, as the brigand relieves