still be poverty and still
discontent, with the work if not with the wages.

The problem for us, for every modern society now, is not so much to
redistribute wealth; that at best can be only a means to an end; but to
use our superfluous energy to the best purpose, no longer to waste it
piecemeal. That problem we solved, to a great extent, in war. We have
to solve it also in peace if the peace is to be worth having and is not
to lead to further wars at home or abroad. The war itself has given us a
great opportunity. It has opened our eyes, if only we do not shut them
again. It has taught every one in the country the most important of all
lessons in political economy which the books often seem to conceal. And,
better still, it has taught us that in economics we can exercise our own
wills, that they concern each individual man and woman as much as
morals; that they are morals, and not abstract mathematics; that we have
the same duty towards the country, towards mankind, that we have to our
own families. The proverb, Waste not, want not, does not apply merely to
each private income. We have accounts to settle not only with our
bankers, but with the community. It will thrive or not according as we
are thrifty or thriftless; and our thrift depends upon how we spend our
income, not merely on how much we spend of it. For all that part of it
which we do not spend on necessaries is the superfluous energy of
mankind, and we determine how it shall be exercised; each individual
determines that, not an abstraction called society.

One may present the thrift of labour as a matter of duty to society.
But Morris saw that it was more than that; and he lit it with the
sunlight of the warmer virtues. It is not merely society that we have to
consider, or the direction of its superfluous energy. It is also the
happiness, the life, of actual men and women. We shall not cease to
waste work until we think always of the worker behind it, until we see
that it is our duty, if with our money we have command over him, to set
him to work worth doing. Capital now is to most of those who own it a
means of earning interest. We should think of it as creative, as the
power which may make the wilderness blossom like the rose and change the
slum into a home for men and women; and, better still, as the power that
may train and set men to do work that will satisfy their souls, so that
they shall work for the work's sake and not only for the wages. Until
capi