A Critical Examination of Socialism | Page 5

justice?
The abstract moral argument plays a large part in the discussion.
It assumes that a man has a moral right to what he produces, interest
being here contrasted with this, as a something which he does not
produce.
Defects of this argument. It ignores the element of time. Some forms of
effort are productive long after the effort itself has ceased.
For examples, royalties on an acted play. Such royalties herein typical
of interest generally.
Industrial interest as a product of the forces of organic nature. Henry
George's defence of interest as having this origin.
His argument true, but imperfect. His superficial criticism of Bastiat.

Nature works through machine-capital just as truly as it does in
agriculture.
Machines are natural forces captured by men of genius, and set to work
for the benefit of human beings.
Interest on machine-capital is part of an extra product which nature is
made to yield by those men who are exceptionally capable of
controlling her.
By capturing natural forces, one man of genius may add more to the
wealth of the world in a year than an ordinary man could add to it in a
hundred lifetimes.
The claim of any such man on the products of his genius is limited by a
variety of circumstances; but, as a mere matter of abstract justice, the
whole of it belongs to him.
Abstract justice, however, in a case like this, gives us no practical
guidance, until we interpret it in connection with concrete facts, and
translate the just into terms of the practicable.
CHAPTER XIV
THE SOCIALISTIC ATTACK ON INTEREST AND THE NATURE
OF ITS SEVERAL ERRORS
The practical outcome of the moral attack on interest is logically an
attack on bequest.
Modern socialism would logically allow a man to inherit accumulations,
and to spend the principal, but not to receive interest on his money as
an investment.
What would be the result if all who inherited capital spent it as income,
instead of living on the interest of it?
Two typical illustrations of these ways of treating capital.

The ultimate difference between the two results.
What the treatment of capital as income would mean, if the practice
were made universal. It would mean the gradual loss of all the added
productive forces with which individual genius has enriched the world.
Practical condemnation of proposed attack on interest.
Another aspect of the matter.
Those who attack interest, as distinct from other kinds of
money-reward, admit that the possession of wealth is necessary as a
stimulus to production.
But the possession of wealth is desired mainly for its social results far
more than for its purely individual results.
Interest as connected with the sustentation of a certain mode of social
life.
Further consideration of the manner in which those who attack interest
ignore the element of time, and contemplate the present moment only.
The economic functions of a class which is not, at a given moment,
economically productive.
Systematic failure of those who attack interest to consider society as a
whole, continually emerging from the past, and dependent for its
various energies on the prospects of the future.
Consequent futility of the general attack on interest, though interest in
certain cases may be justly subjected to special but not exaggerated
burdens.
CHAPTER XV
EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY
Equality of opportunity, as an abstract demand, is in an abstract sense

just; but it changes its character when applied to a world of unequal
individuals.
Equality of opportunity in the human race-course. To multiply
competitors is to multiply failures.
Educational opportunity. Unequal students soon make opportunities
unequal.
Opportunity in industrial life. Socialistic promises of equal industrial
opportunities for all. Each "to paddle his own canoe."
These absurd promises inconsistent with the arguments of socialists
themselves.
A socialist's attempt to defend these promises by reference to employés
of the state post-office.
Equality of industrial opportunity for those who believe themselves
possessed of exceptional talent and aspire "to rise."
Opportunities for such men involve costly experiment, and are
necessarily limited.
Claimants who would waste them indefinitely more numerous than
those who could use them profitably.
Such opportunities mean the granting to one man the control of other
men by means of wage-capital.
Disastrous effects of granting such opportunities to all or even most of
those who would believe themselves entitled to them.
True remedy for the difficulties besetting the problem of opportunity.
Ruskin on human demands. Needs and "romantic wishes." The former
not largely alterable. The latter depend mainly on education.
The problem practically soluble by a wise moral education only, which

will correlate demand and expectation with the personal capacities of
the individual.
Relative equality of opportunity, not absolute equality, the true
formula.
Equality of opportunity, though much talked about by socialists, is
essentially a formula of competition, and opposed to the principles