Page:Studies in socialism 1906.djvu/15

Rh valuable member of the community, and deserves his exceptional rewards."

But a study of the facts will lead our enquirer to discover some weaknesses in this pleasantly simple solution. He will see that up to a certain point the theory holds good, but to a certain point only. It is true that the unskilled labourer, who gives work of least value to the community, receives the lowest wages, the skilled labourer next, the engineer next, and so on. But this comprehensible ascending scale is thrown out of all proportion by the appearance on the scene of the shop-keeping and trading class. The relation between services and rewards becomes confused: the rewards seem to mount up by some magical compound-interest process. Our neat little generalisation about industry and thrift takes on a singularly inadequate, not to say comic, appearance when applied to the manipulators of the stock-market or the railroad barons. And in the case of a large number of persons who perform no kind of work whatever (or who perform work that has nothing to do with the source of their wealth) and yet into whose hands a regular supply of wealth flows incessantly, the explanation breaks down altogether.

Another factor has entered in, and this factor is the private ownership of capital. It disturbs the relation between services and rewards; its action illustrates the law "unto him that hath shall be given" without regard to what he has done or is