"How would they know?"
"Well, everybody has to keep accounts, and the auditors are quite sharp enough to stop any serious defalcation."[7]
"But why take all this trouble to see that wealth isn't wasted! It is wasted if it keeps a large class of people in idle luxury, when the state has made up its mind that idle luxury is a bad thing for mankind."
"Ah, my dear Howard! There you sum up the selfishness of human nature. As long as the poor have power they will put their burdens on the rich."
"Yes, the burdens of wealth. But why should they object to the rich getting rid of the overplus of wealth in any way they please? It wouldn't make any difference to their own enjoyment of work and poverty."
"It ought not to, perhaps, considering what an evil riches are. But what is it that makes the chief satisfaction of work? Surely, that you are producing something—something useful to mankind. If you knew that a considerable proportion of what you produced would be thrown away, why you might just as well work a treadmill, or play golf, instead of ploughing or sowing, or making useful things, such as clothes or furniture. The dignity of labour would disappear."
"Still, if the overplus of food, for instance, makes eating and drinking hateful, as it seems to do here, and the overplus of other things becomes a burden to a large proportion of the people, the result would seem to be about the same as actual waste."[8]
"Well, it is worse, of course, for the rich. But, unfortunately, the poor do not consider that enough. In your happy country, where the upper classes, from what you tell me, act as much for the benefit of the lower classes as for themselves, you escape these problems.
"But we will discuss these things further, and you shall see for yourself. Here we are at Magnolia Hall; allow me to give you a warm welcome to our rich abode."