Page:Social Justice without Socialism.djvu/53

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who bring empty hands to the mill should take all the product of it. To most men’s instinctive judgment this view does not appeal. The general verdict is that it is right for capital to get something.

If we are fishing together from the shore and I make a canoe which multiplies my catch by five, I have a right to the extra return which my new instrument gives me. If my neighbor asks me to lend it to him and I do so, I deprive myself of the extra product I have been getting by means of it, and it is right for him to pay me interest on the cost of the boat. He can do it and make money by the transaction. If his catch is now five times what it was, he can afford to pay