ABSTRACT

The difficulties in private possession arise in the process of becoming rich; for "the ways to enrich are many, most of them foul", and some become rich by accident, which is not either right or wrong. The rich are not to be condemned because they are rich. Private possession of exceptional wealth is bad because it does not permit wealth itself to grow; but we have already found another way. The place which the poor have filled in history, however, must not be made a justification for sentimentalism about poverty. The worker's view reconciles an admiration for increasing economic power with a respect for virtues which hitherto have been found chiefly among the poor; for it should not be assumed that in abolishing poverty we shall give no place to the old virtues of carelessness in regard to riches. The free mind uses wealth or neglects it with equal ease.