You will remember, Jonathan, that in a former letter I dealt with the nature of wealth. We saw then that wealth in our modern society consists of an abundance of things which can be sold. At bottom, we do not make things because it is well that they should be made, because the makers need them, but simply because the capitalists see possibilities of selling the things at a profit.
I want you to consider just a moment how this works out: Here is a workingman in Springfield, Massachusetts, making deadly weapons with which other workingmen in other lands are to be killed. We go up to him as he works and inquire where the rifles are to be sent, and he very politely tells us that they are for some foreign government, say the Japanese, to be used in all probability against Russian soldiers. Suppose we ask him next what interest he has in helping the Japanese government to kill the Russian troops, how he comes to have an active hatred of the Russian soldiers. He will reply at once that he has no such feelings against the Russians; that he is not interested in having the Japanese slaughter them. Why, then, is he making the guns? He answers at once that he is only interested in getting his wages; that it is all the same to him whether he makes guns for Christians or Infidels, for Russians or Japs or Turks. His only interest is to get his wages. He would as soon be making coffins as guns, or shoes as coffins, so long as he got his wages.
Perhaps, then, the company for which he is employed has an interest in helping Japan defeat the troops of Russia. Possibly the shareholders in the company are Japanese or sympathizers with Japan. Otherwise, why should they be bothering themselves getting workpeople to make guns for Japanese soldiers to kill Russian soldiers with? So we go to the manager and ask him to explain the matter. He very politely tells us that, like the man at the bench, he has no interest in the matter at all, and that the shareholders are in the same position of being quite indifferent to the quarrel of the two nations. "Why, we are also making guns for Russia in our factory," he says, and when we ask him to explain why he tells us that "There is profit to be made and the firm cares for nothing else."