making it that he would not gladly rate himself still higher
relatively to his competitors in the struggle for pecuniary
reputability.

In the nature of the case, the desire for wealth can scarcely be
satiated in any individual instance, and evidently a satiation of
the average or general desire for wealth is out of the question.
However widely, or equally, or "fairly", it may be distributed,
no general increase of the community's wealth can make any
approach to satiating this need, the ground of which approach to
satiating this need, the ground of which is the desire of every
one to excel every one else in the accumulation of goods. If, as
is sometimes assumed, the incentive to accumulation were the want
of subsistence or of physical comfort, then the aggregate
economic wants of a community might conceivably be satisfied at
some point in the advance of industrial efficiency; but since the
struggle is substantially a race for reputability on the basis of
an invidious comparison, no approach to a definitive attainment
is possible.

What has just been said must not be taken to mean that there are
no other incentives to acquisition and accumulation than this
desire to excel in pecuniary standing and so gain the esteem and
envy of one's fellow-men. The desire for added comfort and
security from want is present as a motive at every stage of the
process of accumulation in a modern industrial community;
although the standard of sufficiency in these respects is in turn
greatly affected by the habit of pecuniary emulation. To a great
extent this emulation shapes the methods and selects the objects
of expenditure for personal comfort and decent livelihood.