Many others, through their activities in
industry or finance, enjoy an income which is certainly
very far in excess of anything to which their
social utility entitles them. On the other hand, it
often happens that inventors and discoverers, whose
work has the very greatest social utility, are robbed
of their reward either by capitalists or by the failure
of the public to appreciate their work until too
late. The better paid work is only open to those who
have been able to afford an expensive training, and
these men are selected in the main not by merit but
by luck. The wage earner is not paid for his willingness
to work, but only for his utility to the employer.
Consequently, he may be plunged into destitution by
causes over which he has no control. Such destitution
is a constant fear, and when it occurs it produces
undeserved suffering, and often deterioration
in the social value of the sufferer. These are a few
among the evils of our existing system from the
standpoint of production. All these evils we might
expect to see remedied under any system of Socialism.
There are two questions which need to be considered
when we are discussing how far work requires
the economic motive. The first question is: Must
society give higher pay for the more skilled or socially
more valuable work, if such work is to be done in
sufficient quantities? The second question is: Could
work be made so attractive that enough of it would
be done even if idlers received just as much of the
produce of work? The first of these questions concerns
the division between two schools of Socialists:
the more moderate Socialists sometimes concede that
even under Socialism it would be well to retain
unequal pay for different kinds of work, while the
more thoroughgoing Socialists advocate equal
incomes for all workers.
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