by "spending" deplete its capital, while it cannot increase its "spending" without at the same time increasing its real capital,[169] it will doubtless be profitable to a progressive community to reduce its consumption for a while below the normal proportion in order to fully utilise new discoveries in the industrial arts which shall justify in the future increased consumption. But with this necessary qualification it is true that a community cannot exceed in the direction of spending. But the balance may lean the other way. A community may "save too much," that is to say, it may establish a larger quantity of productive machinery and goods than is required to maintain current or prospective consumption. What is to prevent a community consisting of a vast number of individuals with no close knowledge of one another's actions, desires, and intentions, making such a miscalculation as will lead them to place at each of the points A, B, C, D, E, and in all or most branches of industry, a larger quantity of forms of capital than are required? It is said that the harmony which subsists between the social interest and the self-interest of individuals will prevent this, or, in other words, that individuals would find that if they attempted to unduly increase the aggregate of capital beyond what was socially advantageous in view of the community's consumption, it would not pay them to do so. Is this true? An individual working entirely for himself, whose capital lay in his tools and his raw or unfinished commodities, would never increase the latter unduly. A socialist community properly managed would never add to its stock of machinery or increase the quantity of its raw materials or unfinished goods, so as to leave any machines unused or half used, or any goods unnecessarily occupying warehouse room and deteriorating in quality. But when competition of individual interests comes in there is no such security. It may pay individuals to build new factories and put in new machinery where it would not pay the community to do so, were it the sole owner of the means of production.