Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/97

 need hardly be said that on the better solution of this problem the future of Capitalism depends. Capitalism has not only to be just and expedient, and the best system in the interests of the community. It has to show clearly that this is so and make the matter plain to a large number of doubters, who have power to wreck it if they are not convinced.

We can approach the problem from a different angle by considering a claim which has often been put forward by writers on the subject of labour and capital, namely, the right of labour to the "whole of its produce." An interesting book on this subject has been written by Dr. Anton Menger, Professor of Jurisprudence in the University of Vienna, and translated into English with an introduction by Professor Foxwell.

On page 2 of this work, Dr. Menger describes what he considers the "ideal law of property from the economic point of view." This, he says, "would be attained in a system which ensured to every labourer the whole produce of his labour, and every want as complete satisfaction as the means at disposal would allow." He observes that "our actual law of property which rests almost entirely on traditional political conditions, does not even