ent system is defended on
the ground that it safeguards progress!

It cannot be said that our present economic system is any more
successful in regard to the other three objects which ought to be
aimed at. Among the many obvious evils of capitalism and the wage
system, none are more glaring than that they encourage predatory
instincts, that they allow economic injustice, and that they give
great scope to the tyranny of the employer.

As to predatory instincts, we may say, broadly speaking, that in a
state of nature there would be two ways of acquiring riches--one by
production, the other by robbery. Under our existing system, although
what is recognized as robbery is forbidden, there are nevertheless
many ways of becoming rich without contributing anything to the wealth
of the community. Ownership of land or capital, whether acquired or
inherited, gives a legal right to a permanent income. Although most
people have to produce in order to live, a privileged minority are
able to live in luxury without producing anything at all. As these
are the men who are not only the most fortunate but also the most
respected, there is a general desire to enter their ranks, and a
widespread unwillingness to face the fact that there is no
justification whatever for incomes derived in this way. And apart
from the passive enjoyment of rent or interest, the methods of
acquiring wealth are very largely predatory. It is not, as a rule, by
means of useful inventions, or of any other action which increases the
general wealth of the community, that men amass fortunes; it is much
more often by skill in exploiting or circumventing others. Nor is it
only among the rich that our present regime promotes a narrowly
acquisitive spirit. The constant risk of destitution compels most men
to fill a great part of their time and thought with the economic
struggle. There is a theory that this increases the total output of
wealth by the community. But for reasons to which I shall return
later, I believe this theory to be wholly mistaken.

Economic injustice is perhaps the most obvious evil of our present
system. It would be utterly absurd to maintain that the men who
inherit great wealth deserve better of the community than those who
have to work for their living. I am not prepared to maintain that
economic justice requires an exactly equal income for everybody. Some
kinds of work require a larger income for efficiency than others do;
but the