But to these and all other assaults upon the character and methods of
the accumulating man there is one general reply and that is that from
the economic standpoint they are of no consequence whatever. It makes no
economic difference what he is or what he does so only that he performs
his accumulating office.

The one essential fact is that he assembles within his grasp the savings
of Society, prevents their dissipation in personal indulgence, applies
them to beneficial use, and enables the laborer to produce under the
direction of the Captain of Industry by means of the devices of the
inventor applied to the formulas of the scientist what is needful for
the welfare of mankind - and to live while he is doing it. It is the
accumulating man impelled by his instinct, or if you please his lust,
for wealth and power who makes it possible for poor men to live in any
great number. If he happens also to be a Captain of Industry, which
usually he is not, it is merely one middleman cut out. His essential
function is that of the money-grabber. It is by his exercise of that
function that most of us exist.

The third count in the indictment of Socialism is that by obliterating
the Capitalist, accumulating by interest, profit, rent, and the
exploitation of Nature for private gain, it would make life impossible
to half the population of the world and not worth living to the fittest
who should manage to survive.

I trust I make myself understood for there is more and worse to come.

This discussion is necessarily didactic and assertive for it is
impossible to prove or disprove any of these postulates. It is for that