and in so far as he draws interest or profit from this investment he is
a social parasite. It is in practice almost impossible to divest oneself
of that parasitic quality however straightforward the general principle
may be.

It is practically impossible for two equally valid sets of reasons. The
first is that under existing conditions, saving and investment
constitute the only way to rest and security in old age, to leisure,
study and intellectual independence, to the safe upbringing of a family
and the happiness of one's weaker dependents. These are things that
should not be left for the individual to provide; in the civilized
state, the state itself will insure every citizen against these
anxieties that now make the study of the City Article almost a duty. To
abandon saving and investment to-day, and to do so is of course to
abandon all insurance, is to become a driven and uncertain worker, to
risk one's personal freedom and culture and the upbringing and
efficiency of one's children. It is to lower the standard of one's
personal civilization, to think with less deliberation and less
detachment, to fall away from that work of accumulating fine habits and
beautiful and pleasant ways of living contributory to the coming State.
And in the second place there is not only no return for such a sacrifice
in anything won for Socialism, but for fine-thinking and living people
to give up property is merely to let it pass into the hands of more
egoistic possessors. Since at present things must be privately owned, it
is better that they should be owned by people consciously working for
social development and willing to use them to that end.

We have to live in the present system and under the conditions of the
present system, while we work with all our power to change that system
for a better one.