that they receive.

Modern society lays its emphasis on possession and accumulation, and
upon the wealth and power which they yield. The owner of land or of
capital, under the present economic order, is not required to work for
his living. His rents and dividends furnish him a source of income far
more regular and much more dependable than the wage of the worker, or
even than the salary of the man higher up. The rewards of the property
owner, moreover, are far larger than those of the worker. Compare the
income tax returns of Germany, Britain and the United States with the
wage scales from the same countries. The incomes above ten thousand
dollars (two thousand pounds or 40,000 marks in pre-war values) per year
are derived largely or exclusively from the ownership of property. It
pays far better to own than it does to work. The ownership of capital,
like the ownership of land, carries with it power over those who must
use the capital and work the land, thus setting up an owning group or
class which is able to control the lives of the workers, at least to the
extent of taking a part of their product and living upon it without
rendering any commensurate service in return. With the economic rewards
go social honors and distinctions, and the wealthy enjoy social as well
as economic privileges. They develop a system of dress, of language, of
manners and customs that will distinguish them as far as possible from
the common herd, namely, those who work for a living. Veblen describes
the process admirably in his "Theory of the Leisure Class." The leisure
class, he says, has its origin in some form of ownership, on which it
builds the structure of its prerogatives.

The existence of an owning, ruling class divides society into factions,
whose contentions threaten the destruction of any social group in which
they take place. From the intolerable social situation which they
create, there seems to be but one logical means of escape, and that is
through the establishment of a society in which labor and not parasitism
is the ideal toward which children are taught to strive.

Such a society would shift the emphasis from possession to creation
(production) by rewarding the worker rather than the owner. This result
may be accomplished quite simply by giving the chief rewards to those
who create, and by denying to the owner any direct reward for his
ownership. Another step in the same direction could be taken by limiting
individual o