Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/154

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boot factory would no longer be dissatisfied because the harder he worked the more profit he was going to put into the pocket of his employer, without doing any good to himself, unless he were able to secure an increase in wages. He might feel that the harder he worked the more boots he would be turning out for the benefit of the other members of society, and that his efforts would be compensated by similar efforts being made by all his brethren who were working in other industries for the good of himself and other consumers. If he had not attained economic freedom, which is impossible for humanity until we have arrived at the point when all the needs of life can be served by automatic machinery, he might have arrived at a state of things in which the conditions of his work were so entirely different from what they are at present, that he would work hard for the joy of the thing, because he knew that he was helping everybody else, and that everybody else was working hard to help him. If such a state of things could really be brought about, it is clear that the gain would be enormous. Instead of restricting output so as not to "use up the amount of work that wants doing," every worker would work as hard as he