majority of workers public servants without the stimulus of selfishness
it would increase human misery by reducing the aggregate of production
and therefore the possible per capita consumption.

That, however, is on the surface. Let us bore a little deeper toward the
core of the subject. It is a fundamental fallacy of Socialism that all
gain is the result of Labor and that therefore all gain belongs to Labor
- the term "Labor" in practice meaning the great majority of laborers
who are manual workers[1].

Of course Labor is essential to production - so is Capital, which we
shall come to later - and as between two things, both essential, it is
perhaps impossible to conceive of one or the other as superior.

But there is another element, also essential, but in a class so much
above the other two essential elements, that it is not too much to say
that without it there could be no production adequate to sustain for
more than a brief time any great population. And that element is Brains.
It is not to Labor but to the human intellect as developed in the
exceptional man that we owe all that exists, outside of Nature, which we
count valuable, and the ability to so use the resources of Nature as to
enable mankind to live. If products were to be divided among mankind so
that each should receive according to his contribution to the
possibilities of production, after the exceptional men had received
their just dues, there would be very little left for the rest of us.
When European races first discovered this continent it probably
supported less than one million souls, and the number was not
increasing. That it will ultimately support some hundreds of millions is
due to the dealings of the human intellect with Nature. Brains do not
get, do not ask, do not expect and could not use what would rightfully