maintain and increase their claim on industry's product. And whenever they increase industry's output a large part of the price that consumers pay goes to labour. As has been shown, capital without labour is powerless to produce. The wage-earner is thus most likely to earn good wages when there are as many capitalists as possible putting new capital into industry and competing for the services of the wage-earner as a worker, and for his custom as a consumer. If labour prefers to frighten and threaten the capitalist, the latter will be scarce and shy and his capital will be scarce and dear. Moreover the responsibilities that are attached to the ownership of wealth are not always learnt by those who gain it in their own lifetimes. Bad spending, as is particularly evident at present, is a specially prevalent vice among those who have suddenly grown rich. We might cure this disease by having no rich at all, but this cure would mean the adoption of a new economic system, with dangers that will be shown when we come to examine the suggested alternatives to Capitalism.
As it is, labour gets the whole of its product and a great deal more. If it wants to get also the share of the capitalist and the
