gain, I take to be a
respectful doubt whether any single individual is worth to society by
any means as much as some individuals obtain. We might, indeed, have to
qualify this doubt if the great fortunes of the world fell to the great
geniuses. It would be impossible to determine what we ought to pay for a
Shakespere, a Browning, a Newton, or a Cobden. Impossible, but
fortunately unnecessary. For the man of genius is forced by his own
cravings to give, and the only reward that he asks from society is to
be let alone and have some quiet and fresh air. Nor is he in reality
entitled, notwithstanding his services, to ask more than the modest
sufficiency which enables him to obtain those primary needs of the life
of thought and creation, since his creative energy is the response to an
inward stimulus which goads him on without regard to the wishes of any
one else. The case of the great organizers of industry is rather
different, but they, again, so far as their work is socially sound, are
driven on more by internal necessity than by the genuine love of gain.
They make great profits because their works reach a scale at which, if
the balance is on the right side at all, it is certain to be a big
balance, and they no doubt tend to be interested in money as the sign of
their success, and also as the basis of increased social power. But I
believe the direct influence of the lust of gain on this type of mind to
have been immensely exaggerated; and as proof I would refer, first, to
the readiness of many men of this class to accept and in individual
cases actively to promote measures tending to diminish their material
gain, and, secondly, to the mass of high business capacity which is at
the command of the public administration for salaries which, as their
recipient must be perfectly conscious, bear no relation to the income
which it would be open to him to earn in commercial competition.

On the whole, then, we may take it that the principle of the super-tax
is based on the conception that when we come to an income of some L5,000
a year we approach the limit of the industrial value of the
individual.[12] We are not likely to discourage any service of genuine
social value by a rapidly increasing surtax on incomes above that
amount. It is more likely that we shall quench the anti-social ardour
for unmeasured wealth, for social power, and the vanity of display.

These illustrations may suffice to give some concreteness to the
concept