Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/113

 These things had to be said because the wage-earner's case is not helped by being over-stated, and if the wage-earner is taught to believe that he can do everything by himself he is likely to make mistakes that will cost him dear. His case is quite strong enough to stand on the facts of the matter. Without him capital can do nothing in the way of production and little in the way of selling what it produces with his help. Nothing could be more short-sighted than the view of some narrow-minded and stupid employers that it pays capital to pay low wages. Quite apart from the question of bad work owing to bad pay, this doctrine forgets that capital has to work for the consumer, and that a great majority of consumers are wage-earners and their dependents. High wages, if they do not lead to slack work and bad timekeeping, mean high buying power and a good and steady market for articles of general consumption. Every producer or handler of such articles is benefited by an increase in the pay given to the wage-earners employed by all other employers. Therefore it is clearly to the interest of industry as a whole and ultimately of his own enterprise. A busy community with well-distributed buying power is what will