Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/41

 The incentive to effort that is given by the power of acquisition is at present the great driving-force that constantly improves man's control over nature. If we took it away we might find not only that the improvement ceased, but that there was a very serious decline in the output of any country that tried the experiment; and we always have to remember that a country's output is all that it has to live on, apart from the accumulations out of past output, which would very soon be exhausted.

From a purely economic point of view the advantage of a reward for effort in proportion to its success seems to be overwhelming. It is true that, as things are, success in production or organization often comes from forcing very questionable goods or services on a stupid and ignorant public. But that is the public's fault for being stupid and ignorant, and what is the alternative? Either an equal reward for everybody whatever the effort made and whatever the work produced—a system that would, as things are, simply mean that an ever-increasing body of sluggards would live on an ever-dwindling and more disgusted body of workers; or else some new device for a reward in proportion to what is called the "social value" of