But the capitalist who is clearing a hundred thousand
a year may make twice or thrice that interest from his investments. In
short, the charge is: That monopoly and intense competition, with the
variation in price which they cause, have shut out the small capitalists
of the country from the ownership of the most profitable sorts of
property; and by confining them to other lines, have decreased their
possible income from their investments.

A further evil resulting from the congestion of wealth is what is
commonly spoken of as over-production. We are confronted of late years
with the strange spectacle of factories and mills shut down for months
at a time, of markets which, at various times, are glutted with every
sort of commodity. All sorts of causes are given; all sorts of remedies
are suggested and tried. Where is the true one? With the exception of a
few special cases, the fault is not that there are no people who want
the goods. Probably ninety-nine families out of every hundred would buy
more if they had the money to buy with. In many cases the lack of money
to buy with is due to the fact that the bread-winners are out of
employment because of the glutted markets and idle mills. In this way
the evil tends to perpetuate itself and grow worse. Now combine this
fact with the fact that the holders of monopolies are in the receipt of
incomes so great that, in many cases, they are quite unable to spend
them. Also, that this income is largely locked up to wait the chance of
profitable investment, or is used in speculation. Is it not obvious,
now, that the reason why people cannot afford to purchase the goods,
with which the storehouses are glutted, is that too large a proportion
of profits has been diverted to swell fortunes already enormous? Have we
not in this way accounted for a large amount, at least, of the
over-production which is throwing out of employment thousands of
workmen, rendering useless a vast amount of valuable capital, and
affecting from time to time the business of the whole country with a
veritable paralysis?

The facts bear out this theory. For, at many times when producers in
every industry are complaining of dull times because people who buy have
no money to spend, there is an abundance of money to be had for
investment. Fortunately, the evil seen from this aspect must, to a
certain extent, be but a temporary one, and will tend to work its own
cure. For as the world's stock of invested wealth conti