THE SOCIAL FUNCTION OF WEALTH. 829 



two or three seconds. This seemed about the extreme limit of 

 their endurance. Possibly the muscular activity they exhibited 

 was too intense for prolonged exertion. 



And now let us make a little calculation as to the amount of 

 force that each ant must have exerted. As before stated, here was 

 a company of them dragging over a wooden chair seat a weight 

 nineteen hundred and ninety-one times that of each individual 

 engaged in the task ! Supposing that forty ants were at one time 

 at work (which is the largest number that I could count), and 

 that the force exerted was evenly distributed (which in point of 

 fact could not have been the case), each ant must have done at 

 least one fortieth of the work. In other words, each of these tiny 

 workmen was dragging or pushing forward nearly fifty times his 

 own weight (exactly 4975). A man of medium build weighs, we 

 will say, one hundred and fifty pounds. Fifty times this is seven 

 thousand five hundred pounds, or three tons and three quarters. 

 So that even Sandow in relative strength is a long way inferior 

 to these curious little " racehorse " ants. 



THE SOCIAL FUNCTION OF WEALTH. 



BY M. PAUL LEROY BEAULIEU. 



WEALTH concentrated to a high degree in the hands of an 

 individual has a mission, a social function, which is de- 

 rived from its very nature and which it alone can properly fulfill. 

 Wealth has the power of commanding production and labor, and 

 consequently of giving a direction to both ; indirectly, without 

 show, but very effectively, more intimately, and more familiarly, 

 a rich man, like a politician, is a leader of men. Fortune, which 

 is abundant wealth in the hands of an individual, constitutes a 

 power of administration. This power of administration, whether 

 acquired or inherited, can not be used while affairs dependent on 

 one's self are allowed to drift ; for the fortune will in that case 

 probably be dispersed and will escape the hands that are holding it. 

 One may try using it in a purely selfish interest ; he will be likely 

 to become richer and richer, accumulating capital and making 

 himself useful to society by new expenditures ; but he will not 

 fulfill the social function of fortune. One may, on the other hand, 

 place himself at a high general point of view in using this power 

 without excluding his personality. 



The gospel precept, repeated in all Christian morals, that the 

 wealthy are the administrators of the goods of the poor, or the 

 economists of the poor, is a pious maxim not wholly practicable 

 from the human point of view ; but it embodies the principles of 



