CH. xv INTEREST-BEARING FUNDS INJURIOUS 255 



that my conclusion is correct, and that it is by moving in 

 the very opposite direction, so as to bring about the 

 diminution rather than the increase of great individual 

 money-wealth that the real wealth and well-being of the 

 whole community is to be attained. 



Interest-bearing Fiinds a Danger to the Community. 



The evil effects of wealth-accumulation, as now under- 

 stood, are by no means limited to those cases where it is 

 accumulated in abnormally large amounts by in- 

 dividuals, but are not less real or less important when 

 more widely distributed and devoted, as it so often is, to 

 supporting a considerable section of the population in 

 idleness and luxury during their whole lives. For this 

 class of persons are not only, so far as they are idle, an 

 incubus on the community, but, so far as they are 

 luxurious, they become a far greater source of evil in 

 withdrawing large bodies of labourers from the production 

 of useful wealth and keeping them employed in useless or 

 even injurious work. The thousands and tens of thousands 

 whose lives are spent in the manufacture and sale of 

 luxuries, ornaments, nick-knacks, and worthless toys, 

 as well as the majority of those permanently occupied as 

 domestic servants to the wealthy, or in connexion with 

 horse-racing, yachting, and other amusements of the upper 

 classes, represent not only so much lost productive power 

 but are themselves a heavy burthen, since they are all 

 supported by the productive labour of others. 



In an ideal social state no one would live idly and 

 luxuriously on wealth produced by another. No one would 

 be able to obtain surplus wealth, and no children would 

 be brought up to a life of idleness, but would be taught 

 that they are debtors to society for all that they receive 

 and must therefore perform their fair share of useful work. 



In order to make true social progress we must always 

 keep some such ideal in view ; and this brings me to 

 what I consider to be at the very root of the question 

 the evil of all institutions which permit or favour the 

 paying of (nominally) perpetual interest, income, or 

 profits, on any invested capital 



