Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/36

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go to the university as to a social, sporting and athletic club were approaching life from a much more serious point of view even before the war. It is curious to note that in America the tendency seemed to be in the other direction. There opinion was apparently growing in favour of the creation of a leisured class which would do something in life besides pursuing dollars. A leisured class that uses its leisure to do public work that is otherwise done ill or left undone is certainly a national asset, but it cannot be denied that under the capitalistic system there has existed a class of most unamiable folk who lived narrow, selfish lives on wealth that they had inherited, grumbled at paying taxes, forgetting that if the Government did not protect them and their property they would be quite unable to earn a living, and seemed to expect the whole world to be managed for their convenience and comfort. Most of us have suffered from such people, who are apt to gather at such resorts as residential hotels. They were generally quite unable to amuse themselves, and lived lives of unprofitable boredom, a nuisance to themselves and to most people whom they met.

This handicap of inequality was thus in many cases bad for those who enjoyed it. For