yo  TUE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  UNEMPLOYED
men  in  America  affords  an  extreme  case  of  the  selfaccumulative
  power  of  capital.  There  are  on  both  sides
of  the  Atlantic  a  small  number  of  families  whose  most
profuse  expenditure  yet  leaves  an  enormous  surplus  income
to  accumulate.  “  I  can  do  nothing  with  my  income,”
said  Mr.  J.  J.  Astor,  “but  buy  more  land,  build  more
houses,  and  lend  money  on  mortgage.  In  short,  I  am
found  with  the  necessaries  of  life,  and  more  than  that
I  cannot  get  out  of  my  money.”  The  absorption  of
interest  and  the  specialisation  of  activities  required  for  the
successful  practice  of  money-making  are  commonly  such
as  to  leave  undeveloped  or  to  disable  the  capacities  for
spending  even  upon  the  lower  planes  of  material  enjoyment.
Hence  “we  see  as  a  rule  that  men  who  have  made  money
in  business  are  not  great  spenders  of  it  in  the  present,
and  have  often  no  other  notion  of  spending  it  than  to
make  new  businesses  to  bring  them  in  future  returns.”  *
Turning  from  these  leviathans  to  the  merely  wealthy
classes,  we  find  most  of  them  living  well  within  their
incomes  and  furnishing  large  sums  for  investment.  It
would,  I  think,  be  pretty  safe  to  conclude  that  a  very
large  percentage  of  incomes  received  as  rents  and  interest
are  not  used  for  current  expenditure,  but  are  left  to  grow
by  compound  interest.  Since  these  elements  of  income
are  not  earned  by  present  efforts,  they  are  not,  as  a  rule,
required  to  satisfy  present  desires.
In  thus  stating  my  position,  I  do  not  wish  to  be  understood ­
  as  denying  the  utility  or  even  the  “  productive
power”  of  that  abstinence  which  may  rightly  rank  as
“  present  effort  ”  in  the  case  of  the  savings  of  less  wealthy
*  Dr.  Bonar,  “Philosophy  and  Political  Economy,”  p.  222.