Page:The vested interests and the state of the industrial arts - ("the modern point of view and the new order") (IA vestedinterestss00vebliala).pdf/125

 bear is the same as charging what will yield the largest net profit.

There stand over two main questions touching the nature and uses of these vested interests: — Why do not these powerful business concerns exercise their autocratic powers to drive the industrial system at its full productive capacity, seeing that they are in a position to claim any increase of net production over cost? and, What use is made of the free income which goes to them as the perquisite of their vested interest? The answer to the former question is to be found in the fact that the great business concerns as well as the smaller ones are all bound by the limitations of the price system, which holds them to the pursuit of a profitable price, not to the pursuit of gain in terms of material goods. Their vested rights are for the most part carried as an overhead charge in terms of price and have to be met in those terms, which will not allow an increase of net production regardless of price. The latter question will find its answer in the well-known formula of the economists, that “human wants are indefinitely extensible,” particularly as regards the consumption of superfluities. The free income which is capitalised in the intangible assets of the vested interests goes to support the well-to-do investors, who are for this reason called the kept classes, and whose keep consists in an indefinitely extensible consumption of superfluities.