Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/247

 shown on a previous page, many millions of people were born and lived a life that had a good deal of comfort and jollity, and a certain amount of real nobility mixed up in its queer salad-bowl, who never would have seen the light without the industrial development that was in fact worked out under Capitalism. Far from robbing anybody of surplus value, Capitalism is like a benevolent ancestor who, instead of consuming all the port that he could get—as some ancestors did—laid down an enormous cellar of it for the use of future generations. And every one who is now alive in this country, and millions abroad likewise, are now able to help themselves to bottles of the grand old vintage then laid down and now ready for us, crusted, fruity, full of ripe flavour and rich bouquet. For none of us could have been so well off, and many of us could not have been born at all, if Capitalism had not done this deed, and done it judiciously and well. We all thus drink of the bottles laid down by those who went before us, those of us who work, because our work could not have been so well rewarded if we had not been members of a productively efficient community, those who cannot, will not, or do not work,