In putting the case for Capitalism in the foregoing chapters, I have by no means meant to argue that it is the best possible economic system, only that it has worked wonders, and can work still better wonders in the future and that we cannot be sure that any other system that has yet been suggested will do as well. I have tried to show that under it the capitalist—the man who owns the plant and material and takes the risk of enterprise—does not rob the wage-earner of "surplus value" created by the latter, because the surplus value is due to the existence of the plant, and is shared by the wage-earner through the far better standard of life that the equipment of industry has enabled him to secure. Without the plant, the labourer could only supply himself with a bare subsistence, if that. It is true that most of the plant has been made or put where it is wanted by the manual
