The Case for Capitalism
By
Hartley Withers
Author of "The Meaning of Money," "Poverty and Waste," etc.
London
Eveleigh Nash Company
Limited
First published in 1920
To make a better world we want better men and women. No reform of laws and institutions and economic systems will bring it unless it produces them. Institutions and systems that turn men and women into machines working under the control of officials or of monopolies will not make them better even if, as is very far from likely, they make them better off. It is only through facing life's problems for ourselves, making our own mistakes and scoring our own hits, that we can train and hammer ourselves into something better. Individual freedom, initiative and enterprise, have been the life-blood of the Anglo-Saxon race and have made it what it is, pre-eminent among the races of the world because its men and women can think and act for themselves. If we throw away this heritage because we think that regulation and regimentation will serve us better, we shall do a bad day's work for ourselves and for human progress. And yet this seems to be the object to which many earnest and sincere reformers are now trying to lead us, when they ask us to accept nationalization of industry or its organization under Guild monopolies, as a remedy for the evils which are evident in our economic system. If they succeed life will cease to be an adventure and become a drill; the tendency to variation which, as science teaches us, is the secret of development, will be killed or checked, and we shall be standardized, like Government boots.
This book is written to show that the greater output of goods and services on which material progress depends cannot be expected with certainty under any form of Socialism that has yet been proposed; that Capitalism, though a certain amount of robbery goes on in its backyard, does not itself rob anybody, but has wrought great benefits for all classes; and that, if improved and expanded as it may be without any sudden change in human nature such as other systems demand, it may earn for us the great material advance that is needed to provide us with a better, nobler, and more beautiful world.
London, January 1920.
Contents
CHAPTER I
The Existing Discontent—Rebuilding or Overturning?—The World that we want—The Need for greater Output to secure it—What System will give it to us?
CHAPTER II
Its Inequalities—Their bad Effects—Its Advantages, moral and material—The Reward of Effort—Value—The Power of the Consumer—Capitalism and the Democratic Principle.
CHAPTER III
Strength and Skill—Tools, Material and Time—Management—Readiness to face Failure—Crusoe's Example.
CHAPTER IV
Is the Capitalist a Thief?—The Service that he Renders—Messrs. Bernard Shaw and Ramsay Macdonald on Rent—Socially created Wealth—Mr. Macdonald on the Value of Capital—Ruskin and the Plane.
CHAPTER V
Does Capital rob Labour of "Surplus Value"?—Dr. Menger and Mr. Snowden—Back to Crusoe—Surplus Value largely produced by Capital—Shared in by Labour—The Advantages of High Wages.
CHAPTER VI
Great Increase in Population—And Output—Industrial and Scientific Progress—Financial Development—Labour's Share in these Benefits—Capitalism and Peace—Dr. Shadwell on Mediaeval and Modern Conditions.
CHAPTER VII
Socialism Defined—The Position of the Worker—Possible Improvement in Output—Possibilities of Friction—Question of Official Management—War's Experience—The Workers and the Government.
CHAPTER VIII
Mr. Robert Tressall's Description—Its Attractiveness—State Socialism flouted by the Guildsmen—Mr. Brace, M.P., on Bureaucratic Control.
CHAPTER IX
Its Resemblance to Syndicalism—Its Difficulties—Mr. Cole's Exposition—The Position of the State—"Degraded Status" of the Workers—Proposals for its Amendment—Would they work well?—"Catastrophic Action."
CHAPTER X
The Attack on "Surplus Value," Rent and Interest—Wages and Pay—Guild Membership—Possibly "worse off than we are"—The Pay of Hierarchs—Inter-Guild Friction—Dealing with the Capitalist.
CHAPTER XI
What Capitalism has done for us—Consumer's Freedom—Is Capitalism committing Suicide?—Its Mistakes in the Past—Labour as Capitalist—What might be.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1950, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 73 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse