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 pay us all best in the long run, as a matter of mere business, to say nothing of the political and social advantages of such a state of things. If employers think that they can secure this by keeping their wage bill as low as possible and if wage-earners think that it can be done by restricting output we shall never get there.

Nevertheless all that has been said above concerning the benefit derived by labour from work directed and paid for by capital in the past has not really disposed of the difficulty, that was touched on in the last chapter, about the advantage given to certain individuals by the institution of hereditary property. Even if the wage-earners recognize that they are much better off than they would have been it no capitalists had equipped the country for production, they still have to be convinced that it is not unfair to them that the heirs of those capitalists should take to this day so large a share of what labour and capital produce between them. The system gives those heirs the power not only to live without working but to set aside out of their share of surplus a further store of capital which increases their future claim on the product of industry. Going back to the example of our Crusoe capitalist, if we suppose that during his growth