Page:The fallacy of danger from great wealth.djvu/11

 So it is not possible to conceive of money saved and invested in regular course not going, substantially all of it, to the employment of labor and the payment of wages.

No rich man in our day hoards his money. All his income (except what he spends for personal needs and pleasures and what he gives to others for similar purposes) goes into investments in some form, and ultimately all goes to employ labor and pay wages.

It is one of the natural economic laws, as beneficent and as immutable as the law of gravitation, that rich men who invest their money in order to grow richer are really trustees of their wealth for the benefit of labor, whether they so regard themselves or not. The only way a rich man (or any man for that matter) can repudiate such trusteeship is by wasting his wealth by using it in riotous living for himself or for others. He cannot possibly avoid such trusteeship for the benefit of labor, so long as he saves his money and invests it. He has the legal title, but the money must be paid out for labor. The danger to society is not when the rich man desires to save and invest his money and become richer, but when he ceases to have such desire, and begins to