What does he do with it? Of course, he can’t spend it—if he treated himself to a St. Louis Exposition every year, he couldn’t spend it. What he does with it is to take it promptly, and reinvest it in the form of new capital; he employs a staff of thirty-two trained experts to aid him in this work. The effect of this is, of course, to make his income fifty per cent., _compound_ interest, instead of simple; and what it will be in the course of time is a problem for those who like figures. While he is doing this, all the other capitalists are doing the same—the American millionaire lets his wife and daughters spend as much of his money as they can, but he seldom spends any himself; he is more interested in “doing things.” The consequence is, therefore, that year after year we are paying the vast mass of our people mere living wages, and all the surplus product of our toil we are selling, and devoting to the creation of new instruments of production. We have, mark you, machinery that creates products for hundreds of times as many men as it employs, and still we skim off the surplus and devote it to making new machines. Is it not obvious that this cannot go on forever? And that the time must come that we make all that we need—or rather that our people have money to buy, wages being what they are? And if that ever happens, then of course the factories will have to shut down. We shall have millions of men out of work, and starving on our streets; and when they form processions and begin agitating, demanding that we give them work, then we say—that is, our newspapers, our preachers, our politicians, everybody says— “But, my good man, there is no more work to be done!” “But I am starving,” insists the workingman, “we are _all_ starving. _Why_ is there no work?” “The reason there is no work is ‘overproduction.’ The market is clogged with products, you must understand, and we can’t sell them. What is your trade?” “I work in a shoe-factory.” “But the shoe market is already glutted—there are twice as many shoes as there is any use for.” “Twice as many shoes! But my feet are on the ground!” “Well, we can’t help that, my good man; that’s because you have no money to buy them with.” “And my friend here,” goes on the workingman—“he is a tailor, and he is naked because there are too many coats on the market?” “Exactly.” “And the baker here is starving because we are both too poor to buy his bread?” “Exactly.” “And then this druggist is sick because we have no money to buy medicine?” “Exactly.” After which, the workingman stands and scratches his head for a moment. “There is too much of everything,” he reflects. “There is no more work to be done.” And suddenly the light breaks. “Oh, I see!” he cries, “we have finished our work for the capitalists!” And you answer, “Exactly! Everything is complete, and of course there is no more room for you. Therefore you had best be off to another planet!”