3 1 6 ARISTO CRA C Y AND E VOL UTION 



Book iv would have been the rightful heirs to all capital, 

 if all capital had been produced by the common 

 labour of their parents, those who have actually 

 inherited it must be its rightful owners in fact, 

 because in fact it has been produced by the ability 

 of the exceptional men who left it to them. 

 Practically, But the whole of this argument, based on the 



however, the . . ri 11 M 1-1 



justification of claims oi abstract justice, would avail very little to 

 capita? fr defend the income of the mere owner of capital if 

 his position rested upon its abstract justice only, 

 and if his right to his income did not form a part of 

 the very conditions that render the production of 

 wealth possible. The part which the right to income 

 from capital plays when the ownership of the capital 

 is divorced from any active employment of it, de- 

 pends on the fact that the right to income of this 

 kind is what gives to wealth the larger part of its 

 value, and renders the desire of it efficient as a social 

 motive. 



The ways in which it does this are many and 

 various ; and because it is impossible to indicate 

 them in any simple or single formula, certain people 

 may imagine that they have no importance. Such 

 people might as well argue that no complicated 

 process is an important process, or that no results 

 are necessary when many causes combine to produce 

 them, 

 rests on the The most obvious of the reasons why the ri^ht 



fact that the . , . f , 



power of to income from capital forms in the eyes ot the 



capital to yield 



the desirability of the wealth produced by him has 



income exceptional wealth-producer a principal element in 



