is maintained and carried on. The same piece of capital cannot be used
in two ways. Every bit of capital, therefore, which is given to a
shiftless and inefficient member of society, who makes no return for
it, is diverted from a reproductive use; but if it was put to
reproductive use, it would have to be granted in wages to an efficient
and productive laborer. Hence the real sufferer by that kind of
benevolence which consists in an expenditure of capital to protect the
good-for-nothing is the industrious laborer. The latter, however, is
never thought of in this connection. It is assumed that he is provided
for and out of the account. Such a notion only shows how little true
notions of political economy have as yet become popularized. There is
an almost invincible prejudice that a man who gives a dollar to a
beggar is generous and kind-hearted, but that a man who refuses the
beggar and puts the dollar in a savings-bank is stingy and mean. The
former is putting capital where it is very sure to be wasted, and where
it will be a kind of seed for a long succession of future dollars,
which must be wasted to ward off a greater strain on the sympathies
than would have been occasioned by a refusal in the first place.
Inasmuch as the dollar might have been turned into capital and given to
a laborer who, while earning it, would have reproduced it, it must be
regarded as taken from the latter. When a millionaire gives a dollar to
a beggar the gain of utility to the beggar is enormous, and the loss of
utility to the millionaire is insignificant. Generally the discussion
is allowed to rest there. But if the millionaire makes capital of the
dollar, it must go upon the labor market, as a demand for productive
services. Hence there is another party in interest--the person who
supplies productive services. There always are two parties. The second
one is always the Forgotten Man, and any one who wants to truly
understand the matter in question must go and search for the Forgotten
Man. He will be found to be worthy, industrious, independent, and