The first reason is, because
this position of the productive, and still more that of the
unproductive capitalist, is a prize for past industry expended upon
production. To understand this, we must recollect once more that men
work, not as individuals, but as heads of families. Every working man,
from the sailor to the shop-boy, covets for himself two things, pay
and leisure. The same two things do mentally productive labourers
covet. But they covet them, not for themselves alone, but for their
families, and more even for their families than for themselves. They
weary their brains, planning and managing, that in old age they may
retire on a competence, and hand down that same competence,
undiminished by their having lived on it, to their children. Thus the
young man works and produces, that the old man, and the child to come,
may have exemption from productive labour, an abiding exemption, which
cannot be unless he is allowed to live on the interest of accumulated
capital. These positions of affluence and rest--sinecures they are, so
far as production is concerned--are the prizes awarded to the best
productive labour.
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