millions of others did not save how could railways or factories be
built? And if there were no railways or factories how could workers find
employment?

If every capitalist only got income from the product of his own work in
the past, which he had spent, as in this case, on developing industry,
his claim to a return on it would hardly need stating. He would have
saved his ten thousand dollars or two thousand pounds, and instead of
spending it on two thousand pounds' worth of amusement or pleasure for
himself he would have preferred to put it at the disposal of those who
are in need of capital for industry and promise to pay him 5 per cent.
or £100 a year for the use of it. By so doing he increases the demand
for labour, not momentarily as he would have done if he had spent his
money on goods and services immediately consumed, but for all time, as
long as the railway that he helps to build is running and earning an
income by rendering services. He is a benefactor to humanity as long as
his capital is invested in a really useful enterprise, and especially to
the workers who cannot get work unless the organizers of industry are
supplied with plenty of cheap capital. In fact, the more plentiful and
cheap is capital, the keener will be the demand for the labour of the
workers.

But when Dr. Nearing points out that the income of the ten thousand
dollars would be equally secure if the owner of them had them left him
by his father or given him by his uncle, then at last he smites capital
on a weak point in its armour. There, is, without question, much to be
said for the view that it is unfair that a man who has worked and saved
should thereby be able to hand over to his son or nephew, who has never
worked or saved, this right to an income which is derived from work done
by somebody else. It seems unfair to all of us, who were not blessed