s. By our preference for
"brilliant" investments, with a high rate of interest and bad security,
we invite the floating of rotten companies and waterlogged loans. By our
readiness to be deafened by the clamour of the advertiser into buying
things that we do not want, we hand industry over to the hands of the
loudest shouter, and by our half-educated laziness in our selection of
what we read and of the entertainments that we frequent, we open the way
to opulence through the debauching of our taste and opinions. It is our
fault and ours only. As soon as we have learnt and resolved to buy and
enjoy only what is worth having, the sellers of rubbish may put up their
shutters and burn their wares.

Capital, then, is stored up work, work that has been paid for by
society. Those who did the work and took its reward, turned the proceeds
of it into making something more instead of into pleasure and
gratification for themselves. By a striking metaphor capital is often
described as the seed corn of industry. Seed corn is the grain that the
farmer, instead of making it into bread for his own table, or selling
it to turn it into picture-palace tickets, or beer, or other forms of
short-lived comfort, keeps to sow in the earth so that he may reap his
harvest next year. If the whole world's crop were eaten, there would be
no seed corn and no harvest. So it is with industry. If its whole
product were turned into goods for immediate consumption, there could be
no further development of industry, and no maintenance of its existing
plant, which would soon wear out and perish. The man who spends less
than he earns and puts his margin into industry, keeps industry alive.

From the point of view of the worker--by whom I mean the man who has
little or no capital of his own, and has only, or chiefly, his skill, of
head or of hand, to earn his living with--those who are prepared to save
and put capital at the disposal of industry ought to be given every
possible encouragement to do so. For since capital is essential to
industry, all those who want to earn a living in the workshops or in the
countinghouse, or in the manager's office, will most of all, if they are
well advised, want to see as much capital saved as possible. The more
there is of it, the more demand there will be for the brains and muscles
of the workers, and the better the bargain these latter will be able to
make for the use of their brains and muscles. If capital is so scarce
and