CHAPTER II

THE MOTIVES OF THE EXCEPTIONAL WEALTH-PRODUCER

Socialists, though often forgetting the necessity of exceptional motives, often remember it, • 284

and endeavour to show that socialistic society would have sufficient rewards to offer to its great men, • 284

such as the pleasure of doing good, of excelling, and of receiving honour • 285

The fundamental question is, will such rewards as these stimulate great men to wealth-production? • 285

Is the enjoyment of exceptional wealth superfluous as a motive to producing it? • 286

If it is so, it is for the socialists to prove that it is so; • 286

for they themselves admit that it has not been so in the past, and is not actually so now • 287

Are there any signs, then, that the desire for exceptional wealth is beginning to lose its power? • 288

We shall find that the socialists themselves maintain just the contrary; • 288

for they appeal to the desire of each producer to possess all he produces as the most universal and permanent desire in man; • 289

and never questioned this so long as they believed that the sole producer was the labourer • 289

They questioned the doctrine only when they came to see that the great man is a producer also; and they confine their questioning to his case • 290

But if the labourer desires to possess what he produces, much more will the great man do so; • 290

for even if he gives away what he produces, he desires to possess it first • 291

There is no sign, therefore, that the desire for exceptional wealth is losing force as a motive • 292

Are, then, other desires acquiring new force as motives to wealth-production? • 292

Are the joys of excelling, of benefiting others, or of being honoured by others, doing so? • 293

The desire of these joys is a motive to certain kinds of exceptional conduct • 293

It is a motive to benevolent action and religious work; • 293

But neither of these is the same thing as wealth-production • 294

It is a motive to artistic production, certainly, • 294

and also to scientific discovery; • 295

and works of art are wealth, and scientific discovery is the basis of industrial progress; • 296

but great art forms but a small part of wealth, • 296

and artistic effort other than the highest is motived by the desire of pecuniary reward, • 297

whilst scientific discoveries, though made generally from the desire for truth, are applied to wealth-production because the men who apply them desire wealth • 297

What, however, of the fact that the desire for honour makes the soldier work harder than any labourer? • 298

Why, the socialists ask, should not the same desire make the great wealth-producer work? • 299

Mr. Frederic Harrison has urged a similar argument • 299

The answer to this is that the work of the soldier is exceptional; • 300

and we cannot argue from it to the work of ordinary life • 301

The fighting instinct is inherent in the dominant races, • 302

in a way in which the industrial instinct is not • 303

And even in war those who make the prolonged intellectual efforts required, ask for themselves other rewards besides honour • 303

Still more will the great wealth-producers do so • 304

There is therefore nothing to show that these other motives will supersede the desire of wealth • 304

What they really do, and what socialists fail to see, is to mix with the desire for wealth, and add to its efficiency • 304

As the desire of wealth has mixed with other desires in men like Bacon, Rubens, etc. • 305

For in saying that the desire of wealth is essential as a motive to wealth-production we do not mean the desire of wealth for its own sake, • 305

or for the sake of physical gratification • 306

This forms a small part of its desirability • 306

It is desired mainly as a means to power, and to those very pleasures which socialists offer instead of it • 307

The great wealth-producers, susceptible to the motives on which socialists dwell, will desire exceptional wealth all the more because of them • 308

It is argued, however, by semi-socialists that the actual producer may be allowed the income he produces, but that this must end with his life, and not be passed on to his family as interest on bequeathed capital • 309

It is claimed that this arrangement would coincide with abstract justice, • 310

for it is argued that all wealth which is not worked for must be stolen • 310

This is utterly untrue, as the case of flocks and herds shows us; • 311

but the chief producer of wealth that is not worked for is capital, which is past productive ability stored up and externalised • 311

The dart of a savage hunter, • 312

the manure heap or cart horse of a peasant, • 312

are forms of capital which actually produce, and the product belongs to those who own them • 313

The same is the case with such capital as engines and manufacturing plant • 313

These implements are like a race of iron negroes, and are producers as truly as live negroes would be • 314

Indirectly, wage capital is also a producer in the same way • 314

And indeed, till they saw that this argument could be turned against themselves, it was strongly urged by the socialists • 315

Practically, however, the justification of income from capital • 316

rests on the fact that the power of capital to yield income is what mainly makes men anxious to produce it; • 316

since if income-yielding capital could not be acquired and amassed, wealthy men could make no provision for their families, • 317

nor could wealth give pleasure to those who might at any moment be beggars • 318

Moreover, if incomes were not heritable, wealth would produce none of those social results, such as continuous culture, etc., which make it valuable • 319

The wealth that ceased with the men that actually made it would produce a society of beasts • 319

Wealth is desirable because it is the physical basis of an enlarged life; • 320

and there must thus be continuity in the possession of wealth • 320

Hence the great wealth-producer demands the possession not only of what he produces directly, but of what he produces indirectly through his past products • 321

The majority not only may, but do, acquire a share of the increment produced by the great man; • 322

but whatever this share may be, it can never be such as to make social conditions equal • 322