Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/183

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glad to see them go." But their real capital, their factories, farms, mines or machinery, would be a different matter. So a law would be passed, declaring that all land not cultivated by the owner or any factory shut down for more than a specified time, would be taken possession of by the State and worked for the benefit of the community. Fair compensation would be paid in paper money to the former owners, who would be granted an income or pension either for life or for a stated period. Wholesale and retail dealers would be forced to close down their shops and warehouses, first, because they would not be able to replenish their stocks, and secondly because even if they were they would not be able to sell them. This would throw out of work a great host of people "at present engaged in useless occupations, such as managers and assistants in shops of which there are now half a dozen of the same sort in a single street, and the thousands of men and women who are slaving away their lives producing advertisements. These people are in most cases working for such a miserable pittance of metal money that they are unable to procure sufficient of the necessaries of life to secure them from starvation." (Here the writer surely overstates his case.) But all