It is necessary to remember this; but its due is not to be
measured exclusively by its own products.

As will be seen in the concluding chapter.


CHAPTER XIII

INTEREST AND ABSTRACT JUSTICE

The proposal to confiscate interest for the public benefit, on
the ground that it is income unconnected with any corresponding
effort.

Is the proposal practicable? Is it defensible on grounds of
abstract justice?

The abstract moral argument plays a large part in the
discussion.

It assumes that a man has a moral right to what he produces,
interest being here contrasted with this, as a something which
he does not produce.

Defects of this argument. It ignores the element of time. Some
forms of effort are productive long after the effort itself has
ceased.

For examples, royalties on an acted play. Such royalties herein