Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/100

 Dr. Menger are hard to reconcile one with another. If every labourer is to have the whole produce of his labour, it seems to be impossible to arrange matters so that all the wants of all members of society will be as completely satisfied as the means of disposal will allow. One essential is based on the principle of reward in proportion to labour; the other on reward in proportion to "wants"—a very different matter.

Let us consider this question of the surplus value, or unearned income, of which the capitalist is accused of robbing Labour. Mr. Philip Snowden, on page 73 of his book on Socialism and Syndicalism, makes the following remarks on this theory. The doctrine of surplus value, or of surplus labour as it is sometimes called, is not like a theory of value—an abstract idea. It is a concrete fact. The modern capitalist system is so highly organized and its operations are so intricate, that the unpaid value of the worker's product is often obscured, yet it can be found in concrete form by a little investigation. The existence of a rich class who do no labour is the conclusive proof of the claim that labour does not receive all that labour creates, but that a surplus over and above the wages of