Liberty and Property.pdf - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

18Liberty and Propertyland owners are mandataries, as it were, ofthe consumers, and their mandate is revocable.In order to be rich, it is not sufficientto have once saved and accumulated capital.It is necessary to invest it again and again inthose lines in which it best fills the wants ofthe consumers. The market process is a dailyrepeated plebiscite, and it ejects inevitablyfrom the ranks of profitable people thosewho do not employ their property accordingto the orders given by the public. But business,the target of fanatical hatred on the partof all contemporary governments and selfstyledintellectuals, acquires and preservesbigness only because it works for the masses.The plants that cater to the luxuries of thefew never attain big size. The shortcoming ofnineteenth-century historians and politicianswas that they failed to realize that the workerswere the main consumers of the products ofindustry. In their view, the wage earner was aman toiling for the sole benefit of a parasiticleisure class. They labored under the delusionthat the factories had impaired the lotof the manual workers. If they had paid any