Page:The complete works of Henry George vol. 1.djvu/214

 acting upon bad social adjustments. And it will also show that what are clearly and properly wages of superintendence are very frequently confounded with the earnings of capital.

And, so, profits properly due to the elements of risk are frequently confounded with interest. Some people acquire wealth by taking chances which to the majority of people must necessarily bring loss. Such are many forms of speculation, and especially that mode of gambling known as stock dealing. Nerve, judgment, the possession of capital, skill in what in lower forms of gambling are known as the arts of the confidence man and blackleg, give advantage to the individual; but, just as at a gaming table, whatever one gains some one else must lose.

Now, taking the great fortunes that are so often referred to as exemplifying the accumulative power of capital—the Dukes of Westminster and Marquises of Bute, the Rothschilds, Astors, Stewarts, Vanderbilts, Goulds, Stanfords, and Floods—it is upon examination readily seen that they have been built up, in greater or less part, not by interest, but by elements such as we have been reviewing.

How necessary it is to note the distinctions to which I have been calling attention is shown in current discussions, where the shield seems alternately white or black as the standpoint is shifted from one side to the other. On the one hand we are called upon to see, in the existence of deep poverty side by side with vast accumulations of wealth, the aggressions of capital on labor, and in reply it is pointed out that capital aids labor, and hence we are asked to conclude that there is nothing unjust or unnatural in the wide gulf between rich and poor; that wealth is but the reward of industry, intelligence, and thrift; and poverty but the punishment of indolence, ignorance, and imprudence.