Page:The Case for Capitalism (1920).djvu/93

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state of affairs, but will it not lead to industrial chaos rather than progress? Moreover, if the uncomfortable capitalist pursues his study of Fors Clavigera he will find on a later page that a logical but not too tactful correspondent wrote and asked Ruskin how, with his views on capital, he justified his own action in living on money left by his father, and that Ruskin's reply was most unconvincing and irrelevant. And naturally, for though the capitalist who is such by reason of his own work and saving can laugh at those who call him a thief, the inheritor of the results of his effort is not in nearly such a strong position. He knows that he did not steal his immunity from the economic problem that faces most of us, of working or else suffering penury, because it was given or left to him by some one who earned it. But he may well ask himself whether it is equitable that such a great advantage, involving such a great handicap to others, should be handed on from one generation to another. He will appease himself probably with the reflection that if property could not be passed on a great incentive to production and progress would be lost. If the venturers and organizers could not hand on their property to their heirs most of them would,