Page:The Economics of Unemployment.djvu/44

enjoyment as to provide more tools than were wanted, and more than could possibly be put continuously to full use in the production of future goods. But if in any society you get considerable groups of men whose incomes come to them by others' toil instead of their own, and if these incomes are so large as to afford little or no additional satisfaction by any considerable increase of their expenditure, this natural balancing of present against future enjoyment is upset. It becomes too easy for a rich man, living on unearned income, to cause an excessive proportion of the labour which he commands, but does not himself perform, to be directed to the production of future goods which he, or someone else, may or may not consume. In other words, the 'surplus' nature of much of the income which results from inequality of distribution disturbs the true balance of productive activities, and disturbs it normally in the direction of the postponed consumption of articles which, if consumed now by those into whose hand they would fall, would satisfy no felt want but would spell repletion.