200 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK 
to produce wealth enormously in excess of the bare necessaries 
of life. Must we, then, now speed up and work over-time in order 
to have stock to capitalize and to capitalize it? Is this hard 
fate the normal economic lot of man? Unhappily I am convinced 
that it is. I think it demonstrable that the normal increase of 
population, and the unceasing effort of man to raise his standard 
of living keep him forever at tension, and that therefore he pro- 
vides himself with stock to save only by speeding up and working 
over-time. I shall not here undertake to prove that increasing 
population and a rising standard of living do create the tension, 
but shall content myself with the “therefore.” 
It will not be denied, I assume, that unless the standard of 
living is raised, the motive to go on saving and capitalizing 
fails, nor will it be denied that if population presses on the where- 
withal of existence (construed as the standard of living) stock 
can be increased and capitalized in one of two ways only (1) 
through saving by cutting out luxuries and comforts, 1.e., lower- 
ing the standard of living, in which case motive is impaired; or 
(2) by working longer hours and harder. We seem therefore to 
be driven to the conclusion that (2) is the normal way, and 
must continue to be the normal way of accumulating capital 
goods and expanding capitalistic production. 
Reservations, perhaps denials come to mind. It may be alleged 
that the motive to save is not impaired by present frugality for 
the purpose of maintaining or raising a standard of living in the 
future, for self or family. This might be conceded but for three 
stubborn facts: One, the force of the motive to save for the 
future is weakened in modern populations by a common and 
intrenched belief that a certain amount of “conspicuous waste” is 
necessary to maintain social standing, and that social standing 
is necessary to insure economic standing and family advancement. 
Two, a considerable part of any “provision for the future” ulti- 
mately disappears in “deferred consumption,” and so from the 
productive process. And three, humans of the vigorous sort 
obviously prefer to work over-time (for a price) than to attempt 
severe retrenchment of expenditure. 
A further reservation and contention, namely, that improved 
machinery and better processes provide us with surplus goods to 
capitalize, I think wholly invalid, because it confuses dates. 
How do we get the better machines and so on, and what do we do