And let us not dwell on the increasingly large portion of gains from increased productivity that go to capital. People might get the wrong idea. As John Stuart Mill noted long ago, justifying capitalism on the basis of its ability to create wealth neither says nor implies anything about how that wealth is distributed. But the capitalists see it as a 'law of nature' that those who make the money get to decide how it is distributed, to the extent that it is distributed at all and regardless of the consequences of the distribution that they make.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."