Besides this, the power conferred by wealth also affords a motive
to accumulation. That propensity for purposeful activity and that
repugnance to all futility of effort which belong to man by
virtue of his character as an agent do not desert him when he
emerges from the naive communal culture where the dominant note
of life is the unanalysed and undifferentiated solidarity of the
individual with the group with which his life is bound up. When
he enters upon the predatory stage, where self-seeking in the
narrower sense becomes the dominant note, this propensity goes
with him still, as the pervasive trait that shapes his scheme of
life. The propensity for achievement and the repugnance to
futility remain the underlying economic motive. The propensity
changes only in the form of its expression and in the proximate
objects to which it directs the man's activity. Under the regime
of individual ownership the most available means of visibly
achieving a purpose is that afforded by the acquisition and
accumulation of goods; and as the self-regarding antithesis
between man and man reaches fuller consciousness, the propensity
for achievement -- the instinct of workmanship -- tends more and
more to shape itself into a straining to excel others in
pecuniary achievement. Relative success, tested by an invidious
pecuniary comparison with other men, becomes the conventional end
of action. The currently accepted legitimate end of effort
becomes the achievement of a favourable comparison with other
men; and therefore the repugnance to futility to a good extent
coalesces with the incentive of emulation. It acts to accentuate
the struggle for pecuniary reputability by visiting with a
sharper disapproval all shortcoming and all evidence of
shortcoming in point of pecuniary success. Purposeful effort