in economic life favors the survival and accentuation of the predatory
temperament and habits of thought. Under the modern, peaceable system,
it is of course the peaceable range of predatory habits and aptitudes
that is chiefly fostered by a life of acquisition. That is to say, the
pecuniary employments give proficiency in the general line of practices
comprised under fraud, rather than in those that belong under the more
archaic method of forcible seizure.

These pecuniary employments, tending to conserve the predatory
temperament, are the employments which have to do with ownership--the
immediate function of the leisure class proper--and the subsidiary
functions concerned with acquisition and accumulation. These cover the
class of persons and that range of duties in the economic process which
have to do with the ownership of enterprises engaged in competitive
industry; especially those fundamental lines of economic management
which are classed as financiering operations. To these may be added
the greater part of mercantile occupations. In their best and clearest
development these duties make up the economic office of the "captain
of industry." The captain of industry is an astute man rather than
an ingenious one, and his captaincy is a pecuniary rather than an
industrial captaincy. Such administration of industry as he exercises
is commonly of a permissive kind. The mechanically effective details of
production and of industrial organization are delegated to subordinates
of a less "practical" turn of mind--men who are possessed of a gift for
workmanship rather than administrative ability. So far as regards their
tendency in shaping human nature by education and selection, the common
run of non-economic employments are to be classed with the pecuniary
employments. Such are politics and ecclesiastical and military
employments.

The pecuniary employments have also the sanction of reputability in
a much higher degree than the industrial employments. In this way the
leisure-class standards of good repute come in to sustain the
prestige of those aptitudes that serve the invidious purpose; and the
leisure-class scheme of decorous living, therefore, also furthers the
survival and culture of the predatory traits. Employments fall into
a hierarchical gradation of reputability. Those which have to do
immediately with ownership on a large scale are the most reputable of
economic employments proper. Next to these in good repute