He turned away in disgust—but I prodded him.
"What is your remedy? You criticise fiercely! but give no light. You are simply destructive."
"The remedy is more difficult to give," he said gravely; "because the evil has been going on so long that it has become deep-rooted. It has sunk its roots into, not only the core of our life, but our character. It will take long to eradicate it. But one economic evil might be, and eventually must be changed, unless we wish to go down into the abyss of universal corruption and destruction."
"You mean——?"
"Capitalism—the idea that because a man is accidentally able to acquire through adventitious and often corrupt means vast riches which really are not made by himself, but by means of others under conditions and laws which he did not create, he may call them his own; use them in ways manifestly detrimental to the public good and, indeed, often in notorious destructiveness of it, and be protected in doing so by those laws."
"'Accidentally'—and 'adventitious means'! That does not happen so often. It may happen by finding a gold mine—once in ten thousand times—or by cornering some commodity on the stock or Produce Exchange once in one hundred thousand times, but even then a man must have intellect—force—courage—resourcefulness—wonderful powers of organization."
"So has the burglar and highwayman," he interrupted.
"But they are criminals—they break the law."
"What law? Why law more than these others? Is not the fundamental law, not to do evil to others?"
"The law established by society for its protection."