Social equality Author:William Hurrell Mallock Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER VII. THE HUMAN CHARACTER AND THE DESIRE FOR WEALTH. First, then, I shall suggest to the reader an exceedingly simple question. Wealth exists in th... more »e world, and it has been produced by men somehow. Why have men produced it ? The answer seems obvious—men have produced it because men have wished to possess it: and that, in some sense or other, certainly must be true. But in giving that answer, what would most people mean by it ? Would they mean that all men have wished to possess wealth—that it is a natural wish in fact, and may be taken for granted in every one ? Or would they mean that it is an exceptional wish, not natural at all, and only acquired under certain special circumstances ? To most people it will seem absurd to ask. Of course they willsay, all men wish for wealth, though unfortunately only a few can get it. Such, as we know, is the loose view current about the matter. I shall therefore ask the reader to consider the following imaginary case. Let him imagine a race of unwarlike savages, living on an enchanted island, where loaves and roast mutton grew upon all the trees, and where the climate was so delightful that there was need neither for roof nor clothing. Here one might think would be the ideal cradle of wealth. Those necessaries which in countries at present civilised the labourer has to expend all his powers in securing, the people here possess without any labour at all. They start, as it were, with their wages a free gift to them. Their entire time is their own; if they labour at all, it will not be to sustain life, but to embellish it; and whatever the results of any man's labour may be, there is no reason why he should not enjoy the whole of them. Ex hypothesi no one can be in want; ex hypothesi also, anybody might be in luxury. Would not such...« less