Page:The fallacy of danger from great wealth.djvu/22

16 and wages are usually better than alms, so saving and investing money (though it results in a big fortune for the owner) are far better for society than foolish giving. The person who benefits society is the man who by saving and investing accumulates a fortune, and not the family who spend and give away the fortune after his death.

From what is stated above it follows that whatever increases the product of industry increases wages. The increase of product, if it goes in the first instance to the capitalist, increases his income, and out of his income he has more money for saving, and all his saving, as above explained, goes ultimately as wages. Thus all labor-saving machinery and devices are for the benefit of laborers, and so also all efficiency of labor in every form. The industrial development of the United States in the last twenty years, or even the last ten years, is an instance and an irrefutable proof of this truth.

The grand successes of our own times, and especially of our own country, have been industrial. Through these successes the great body of the people of the country have been raised to a level of prosperity with high