g2  THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  UNEMPLOYED
following  terms.  Modern  machinery  and  methods  of
production  have  brought  about  a  vast  and  continuous
increase  in  the  power  of  producing  wealth:  the  rate  of
consumption  has  likewise  risen,  but  less  rapidly.  This
decrepancy  in  the  pace  of  progress  is  manifested  in  the
existence  of  a  permanent  surplus  of  producing-power—i.e.,
though  every  producing-power  implies  the  existence  of  a
corresponding  consuming-power  the  latter  is  not  fully
utilised.  This  failure  to  fully  utilise  consuming-power
is  due  to  the  fact  that  much  of  it  is  owned  by  those
who,  having  already  satisfied  all  their  strong  present
desires,  have  no  adequate  motive  for  utilising  it  in  the
present,  and  therefore  allow  it  to  accumulate.
§  26.  No  Repudiation  of  Uses  of  Individual
Thrift.
To  all  who  have  followed  carefully  the  line  of  reasoning
adopted  here  it  ought  to  be  manifest  that  no  depreciation
of  the  merit  and  uses  of  individual  “thrift”  is  intended
or  conveyed.  But  so  firmly  implanted  in  the  mind  of
most  men  is  the  individualist  conception  of  the  commercial
community,  that  they  are  exceedingly  apt  to  transfer  the
limit  set  upon  the  “saving”  of  a  community  to  the  case
of  an  individual.  The  temptation  to  defend  an  orthodox
position  in  “  economics  ”  by  representing  its  assailants  as
engaged  in  an  insidious  attack  upon  the  character  and
moral  habits  of  the  members  of  the  working  classes  has
proved  too  powerful  for  many  critics.  It  may  therefore
be  well  to  conclude  this  chapter  by  a  distinct  pronouncement ­
  to  the  effect  that  an  acceptance  of  the  doctrine,
that  the  quantity  of  socially  useful  “  saving  ”  for  a
community  at  a  given  time  is  limited,  does  not  in  any